Connect to PC over wifi

[jamietre]

I've searched for hours and can find no solution - and not really even any discussion of this. I'm a proud new owner of a Kobo Aura H20. I love the hardware. But getting content onto it from anywhere other than the book store seems awfully old school. I want to use the news push features from Calibre, but I really don't want to have to plug it in several times a day to update it, or whenever I want to add something manually.

Seems very strange that in 2015 I have to physically plug a WiFi enabled device into my computer to get data onto it or use this beta web browser as a workaround. Is there really no way to add it as a device to my computer when it's connected to my local network, or that it can communicate with any cloud service directly?

It seems so primitive that the only way I can really pull content wirelessly is through the awful web browser that won't even let me bookmark my Calibre server's IP address. This is a workaround at best.

Wondering if there's any solution I'm overlooking or this is something that a future software update might address. There really should be some non-complex way to sync content over wifi, either through direct PC connection or a cloud service.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by jamietre

It seems so primitive that the only way I can really pull content wirelessly is through the awful web browser that won't even let me bookmark my Calibre server's IP address. This is a workaround at best.

I don't know what you are doing wrong, but I have bookmarked my calibre servers URL. It's been there a while, so maybe something has changed since then.

As to the rest...

There are three ways to get books onto the device:

- Sideload
- Download via the browser
- From the Kobo servers

As only the last one is likely to make Kobo any money, I don't really expect it to change. Except in maybe one way.

As Rakuten is buying Overdrive, there is hope for an Overdrive client to be integrated into the firmware. I have no idea if Kobo is planning to do this or not, but it would be a sensible move.

[jamietre]

Thanks for clarifying. Any idea how I would create a bookmark? There seem to be no obvious icons or controls in the browser.

In any event this is disappointing - I thought actually selling me a kobo made them some money. This seems such a strange design choice, since it's only an inconvenience and doesn't actually prevent me from sideloading (which is supported of course) -- it just makes it annoying.

The kind of content for which this matters most (that is, stuff that is short and changes frequently, like news) is the kind that would never earn them money. Most of the actual books I buy are technical books that I can't buy through their site anyway. I don't mind plugging in or doing the manual browser thing to download a whole book once in a while, but it would be frustrating to have to do this to keep in sync with stuff that I want to update daily.

Anyway hopefully the future brings better design choices.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by jamietre

Thanks for clarifying. Any idea how I would create a bookmark? There seem to be no obvious icons or controls in the browser.

In the bottom right is a menu icon. Tap it and you will see the option "Add to Favourites". You're done. Alternatively "Set Page To Home", which will be the best option if you're planning to do this regularly.

Me, I mostly just sideload with the cable. It takes seconds, and it recharges the reader at the same time.

[jamietre]

Originally Posted by meeera

Me, I mostly just sideload with the cable. It takes seconds, and it recharges the reader at the same time.

It's not a dealbreaker.. just seemed so unnecessarily limiting. If I could sync it at the touch of a button, I'd do it 3 times a day (or constantly) and keep it updated with news feeds from blogs I read and so on. But having to constantly plug it in to do this (and remember this is also an H2O - it has a cap over the port , I just can't see myself doing that except to load a book.

This is my first e-reader... I think I've just gotten used to the convenience of cloud services on my smartphone. The idea of having to interact physically with cables and so on just to manage content seems so 10 years ago. But my primary point in buying this is to read books. It will still serve that purpose just fine, it could just be more.

[meeera]

... you're welcome?

[jamietre]

Sorry...

[meeera]

Originally Posted by jamietre

Sorry...

You're welcome.

You're right, it's not a Swiss Army Knife. Tech that is trying to be a SAK often does one or more tasks poorly or annoyingly. Use your phone or phablet for rapidly-updating blogstuff and browsing, and your ereader for reading books, and it all works well.

[Ken Maltby]

Then you could add Koreader to your device, its OPDS lets you access the calibre server, from your device. Since you can tell it where to put the file, there is nothing stopping you from putting the file where the stock readers can see it. No browser needed.

With Koreader you can also connect to calibre as a device, wirelessly, and send selected books from calibre's library to your device. With this approach calibre will create its file structure on your device (again where you tell it).

You can wirelessly "pull" ebooks from calibre on your PC, to your device, from your device or wirelessly "push" ebooks to your wirelessly attached device, from within calibre. (I think just turning the calibre server on and then using the OPDS feature of Koreader on my device, is the easiest. I usually have calibre open, from processing a new book, anyway. )

As for "The Cloud" this is one way, just don't use a "Public" folder.

Luck;
Ken

[jamietre]

This option sounds interesting. This is the first I'd heard of it. I don't mind getting hacky with my toys, I will definitely try this out. Thanks for the tip.

I had done the dropbox thing initially - it works fine, but is pretty much the same web-browsery experience as using Calbre server except a little less nice. I'm not too concerned about being able to access content 24/7 in the cloud, really just trying to find the most streamlined way to get updated content to the machine. I would love it to be the book version of a podcast player on my phone!

I do also read stuff on my phone a lot, but I'm trying to migrate as much as I can to the reader because it's just a much more pleasant experience and not as hard on my eyes. Calibre does an amazing job of packaging content feeds for the e-reader. I am really loving the hardware so far. It's so much better than reading on a phone or tablet.

[latepaul]

It's probably not the whole solution but have you looked at Pocket? It's integrated with the Kobo firmware so anything you save there can be downloaded wirelessly. The question would be whether you can set up some kind of "feed" to be the equivalent of the Calibre news schedule.

[latepaul]

Looks like feedly can save to Pocket but you have to choose articles individually.

[tilia]

Originally Posted by latepaul

Looks like feedly can save to Pocket but you have to choose articles individually.

Inoreader can be set up to automatic send new posts to Pocket. You do this via rules. There's a global limit on 150 posts per day, and there may also be per feed/service limits, I'm not sure. I haven't used it myself, I only send to Pocket manually.

[Ken Maltby]

Originally Posted by jamietre

This option sounds interesting. This is the first I'd heard of it. I don't mind getting hacky with my toys, I will definitely try this out. Thanks for the tip.

I had done the dropbox thing initially - it works fine, but is pretty much the same web-browsery experience as using Calbre server except a little less nice. I'm not too concerned about being able to access content 24/7 in the cloud, really just trying to find the most streamlined way to get updated content to the machine. I would love it to be the book version of a podcast player on my phone!

I do also read stuff on my phone a lot, but I'm trying to migrate as much as I can to the reader because it's just a much more pleasant experience and not as hard on my eyes. Calibre does an amazing job of packaging content feeds for the e-reader. I am really loving the hardware so far. It's so much better than reading on a phone or tablet.

Koreader also has a "Progress Sync" feature, so, if your phone and tablet are Android you can have Koreader on them all and be able to go from device to device and keep reading from where you left off. (Android,Kindle,Kobo, and PocketBook devices) Koreader's use of the calibre server is just by menu selection, no browser is used. The "Local calibre catalog" is just one of those supplied, there are others like "Project Gutenberg", "Feedbooks", and "ManyBooks". You can add OPDS catalogs by just entering their URL and giving a name for the listing.

Luck;
Ken

[latepaul]

Originally Posted by tilia

Inoreader can be set up to automatic send new posts to Pocket. You do this via rules. There's a global limit on 150 posts per day, and there may also be per feed/service limits, I'm not sure. I haven't used it myself, I only send to Pocket manually.

Thanks for that. I've signed up and linked it to my Pocket account and it looks pretty useable. I'll probably hit the 150 posts a day easily but then I don't usually read my RSS feeds on my devices.