Looking for a hackable e-reader with touchscreen for app development

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by shawly

There are no e-ink panels with touch support that can interface with an RPi, at least I didn't find any.

Plenty of specific Pi shield eink panels. Probably without touch, but I didn't look. So you need interactive?

Here are two. There are others on that store.
https://www.ebay.ie/itm/7-5-E-Ink-Di...S/174113609880
https://www.ebay.ie/itm/2-13-inch-E-...U/173950354181
(Tracking removed. likely you can edit the .ie to .com or co.uk )
There are other suppliers. I've bought a replacement Kindle battery, but otherwise I have no idea how good or reliable they are. Took about 5 weeks to arrive.

Note a lightweight USB keyboard cover for a phone/tablet is about $10 and superior to enter shopping list items. Cover can be cut off. Or a larger USB 78 keyboard about 8" is about $9.

Or buy a Kobo and you are on your own vs a Raspberry Pi. Power isn't an issue as the fridge needs power.

[shawly]

Yes, I need the display to support touch controls as I don't wanna hang a keyboard on my fridge.

And like I mentioned, the overall cost is way higher and it drains battery probably faster than a tablet, since I have to use a powerbank because I cannot access the sockets behind my fridge without unmounting the fridge.
Hanging a RaspberryPi, powerbank, display and a keyboard onto a fridge also doesn't look very pleasing.
Overall the RPi is not the optimal solution for this scenario.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by shawly

Hanging a RaspberryPi, powerbank, display and a keyboard onto a fridge also doesn't look very pleasing.

I've produced many custom terminals. It's not hard to fit it all in a nice case and get at the plug sockets ONCE to wire the power. One I did used a 4 x 4 key pad, 4 coloured buttons under the 2 line x 16 character display, with bottom line labelling the coloured buttons. It actually used a 486 compatible industrial controller, NiMH for 30 minutes operation if power failed and mini-PCI WiFi card. All the SW on a CF card and using a shell script plus a C program on Linux.

A browser and graphics panel is overkill. But if you want skinny, you need to hack a Kobo. You could just use it as a terminal over WiFi or via USB Internet (which would power it, I've used USB from the living room TV to a computer in a shed using one USB repeater) Note in this application it probably needs external power!

See also https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=313811

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by stumped

...ok ... and then only to find that the CPU is too weak for what he needs. same goes for Kindle CPUs. they are not suited at all for real time multi-tasking

you want to program something - buy a programmable (out of the box) device

What do you mean by "real time" multi-tasking?

Kindles are certainly multi-tasking.

Originally Posted by stumped

No amount of wishful thinking will enable the 2.4Ghz only kobo wifi chip to see any 5GHz smart devices.
but some people will keep obsessively trucking on - like the deluded fools still trying to get bluetooth audio to play on a kindle - its like training octopuses to predict the next world cup - but train enough octopuses & who knows...

Some Kindle models play bluetooth audio out of the box as long as it is a file purchased from audible via amazon. Someone is trying for other file types. What is deluded about that?

[stumped]

Real time and multi task. From post #1 the purpose is to monitor the status of multiple smart devices
Does not say how many or how often. I assumed he wants current status, thus real time. Maybe not



As for Bluetooth mp3 audio on kindle, it's been nearly a month since I hypothesised "can't be done". Some 40 posts later , that hypothesis is holding up

In both cases it seems neither time effective or cost effective , when other devices are far better suited.

Bluetooth music at acceptable quality: smart phone or tablet
Status monitoring of multiple smart devices: Google nest a.k.a Google home, the with- screen version, or echo look, or docked fire tablet in show mode.
But each to his own.
If there's a market for Alexa equipped microwaves or for on line self replenishing fridges then hey, maybe a kobo based smart things monitor will be a huge hit.
Even though there are free apps galore for that already.
OTOH the goblin teasmaid was a flop .

[Quoth]

I'd setup an old laptop running Linux as a web server. Or an old router with OpenWRT and the DNS & DHCP & Routing disabled. Anything to hand, need not even have WiFi. Have it do all and serve a webpage with database or notetaking input field.
Then any ereader with web browser can be used to display the stats & input text. No customisation needed at all. No need for always on WiFi.

[shawly]

Originally Posted by stumped

Real time and multi task. From post #1 the purpose is to monitor the status of multiple smart devices
Does not say how many or how often. I assumed he wants current status, thus real time. Maybe not

On which experience or source are you basing your argument that a Kobo Aura with a 1GHz CPU wouldn't be able to query information from a REST API in real time??

Even an ESP8266 is capable of executing a sequence of HTTP requests in less than a second, what makes you think an e-reader that has a 10 times more powerful processor isn't capable to do so as well?

[stumped]

just go build it already, then we can all acknowledge your genius.

it's not just the CPU, its the whole design and what it was designed for - i.e. to drive e-ink displays, and fetch occasional via-wifi book files and updates

its not designed for what you want it to do.

but only you know how many devices you want it to monitor and how fast/often you want the updates.

I guess the fact that my first 1st gen Kobo needed about 2 seconds to flip a page made me skeptical.

[shawly]

Originally Posted by stumped

just go build it already, then we can all acknowledge your genius.

Salty much.

You seemingly haven't grasped the concept of hacking devices and developing homebrew.
Of course the device wasn't designed for this purpose, but that doesn't mean it can't do it just because you think it can't without any real base for your assumption.

The first gen Kobo hardware isn't even comparable to the one of the Aura, they made massive improvements with the Kobo Touch over the first gen.

I could monitor a fuckton of devices in real time depending on how it's implemented, for example if I aggregate all information within a single REST API which the Kobo can access over a single request in real time easily. Developing apps for such devices isn't about how capable the device is, it's about how you can work around it's limitations. So telling someone something isn't possible, even though you have no clue about what is possible, is just narrow-minded.

But like I already said, I don't need nor do I want a real time monitor, as the beauty of e-ink lies in it's low power consumption since the display requires no power for displaying static content.
Monitoring stuff in real time would require the display to refresh the content in real time as well, also the wifi would need to be turned on constantly and the battery would probably drain quickly and then it wouldn't be any different from using a tablet.

This dashboard app isn't much different from what I wanna achieve, so we already got our "genius" right there.

[pazos]

Avoiding web apps is a good idea. The browser doesnt keep the message while suspended, so probably is not good for your interest.

While is possible to build Qt5 from source and use a web framework on top of that, the amount of time used just for compilation could be sufficient for getting a working prototype using FBInk and standard shell tools

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by stumped

No amount of wishful thinking will enable the 2.4Ghz only kobo wifi chip to see any 5GHz smart devices.
but some people will keep obsessively trucking on - like the deluded fools still trying to get bluetooth audio to play on a kindle - its like training octopuses to predict the next world cup - but train enough octopuses & who knows...

Ummm... my home monitoring system is 2.4GHz but has no issues working with my 5GHz connected devices. The wireless router worries about those details, all the monitoring system worries about is talking to the router and the IPv4 addresses of the connected devices.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by stumped

I guess the fact that my first 1st gen Kobo needed about 2 seconds to flip a page made me skeptical.

Early e-ink screens themselves were responsible for 2 second page changes, not the CPUs.

[Pajamaman]

Originally Posted by stumped

No amount of wishful thinking will enable the 2.4Ghz only kobo wifi chip to see any 5GHz smart devices.
but some people will keep obsessively trucking on - like the deluded fools still trying to get bluetooth audio to play on a kindle - its like training octopuses to predict the next world cup - but train enough octopuses & who knows...

Octopuses are extremely bright, so hardly a fair comparison to a Kindle I don't know how people can eat them.

"deluded fools"? Wow. Let people have their fun.

But I learned a new amusing word: fuckton
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=fuckton

[ottischwenk]

Originally Posted by shawly

Thanks for the tip! Creating and sideloading Android apps would technically prove way easier than creating homebrew for Kindles or Kobos, so they are definitely an option.

Die Tolino Firmware ab Version 11 beruht auf Android 4.4.2 und bootet in die einzige installierte App - die Tolino App.
Hier wird beschrieben, wie weitere Apps installiert werden können.