Aura KA1 best firmware

[holysmoer]

Hi guys,
I'm curious what is for you the best firmware version for Kobo Aura One.
Actually I have the version 4.2.8110 and I would like to know if upgrade and to which version. Thank you

[ItalianUruguayan]

A small piece of info about the different firmwares I have tried on my Kobo Glo HD. Some I will not mention because they are not important enough in terms of new features. Of course, this will be biased by my needs, but nothing is perfect.

3.15.0: This version is significant because you can play chess on it. There's also a metazoa patch that disables wi-fi sleep and is not available for later versions. But the pbchess launcher has some bugs here: It always launches with the light off and, once you try to go out of the launcher and return to nickel, it freezes, and you have to restart your device.

3.18: Im using this one. It is the last version with the chess game. pbchess works well. There's an annoying bug on it, though: You cannot charge the device while sleeping. Once you plug it, it turns itself on.

3.19.5761: It is nice because, since this version was available for months, a lot of patches have been developed for it. For example, there is a patch that lets you open the web browser with wi-fi disabled. And one that lets you change the Kobo store replacing it with your own Calibre server. And you can enable the beta features menu with a simple patch without having to use an hexadecimal editor in order to edit nickel. And a lot more (if you want to find any of this patches let me know and I'll link to them here).

4.2.8432 is the last version with the tiled home screen. Newer versions will have the new home screen (which I dislike).

4.7.10413 is the current one. What I like about this one is that there's a patch that lets you reduce both the footer and the header size of the nickel interface. But it has some bugs: The browser is oversensitive to taps, and usually trying to scroll will be a disaster. When you scroll, sometimes it thinks that you did a double tap and will change the zoom. Sometimes you will scroll and th browser will return to the top of the page. These things make the browser unusable. The sketchpad app is horrible because it has a LOT of ghosting when you open it. But at least there's also a metazoa patch to enable beta features on it.

Please note that, the newer the version, the fastest the web browser will be. And the more responsive the keyboard and reading engine will be.

[PeterT]

Just remember the first version for the KA1 was 4.0.7523

[holysmoer]

Originally Posted by ItalianUruguayan

A small piece of info about the different firmwares I have tried on my Kobo Glo HD. Some I will not mention because they are not important enough in terms of new features. Of course, this will be biased by my needs, but nothing is perfect.

3.15.0: This version is significant because you can play chess on it. There's also a metazoa patch that disables wi-fi sleep and is not available for later versions. But the pbchess launcher has some bugs here: It always launches with the light off and, once you try to go out of the launcher and return to nickel, it freezes, and you have to restart your device.

3.18: Im using this one. It is the last version with the chess game. pbchess works well. There's an annoying bug on it, though: You cannot charge the device while sleeping. Once you plug it, it turns itself on.

3.19.5761: It is nice because, since this version was available for months, a lot of patches have been developed for it. For example, there is a patch that lets you open the web browser with wi-fi disabled. And one that lets you change the Kobo store replacing it with your own Calibre server. And you can enable the beta features menu with a simple patch without having to use an hexadecimal editor in order to edit nickel. And a lot more (if you want to find any of this patches let me know and I'll link to them here).

4.2.8432 is the last version with the tiled home screen. Newer versions will have the new home screen (which I dislike).

4.7.10413 is the current one. What I like about this one is that there's a patch that lets you reduce both the footer and the header size of the nickel interface. But it has some bugs: The browser is oversensitive to taps, and usually trying to scroll will be a disaster. When you scroll, sometimes it thinks that you did a double tap and will change the zoom. Sometimes you will scroll and th browser will return to the top of the page. These things make the browser unusable. The sketchpad app is horrible because it has a LOT of ghosting when you open it. But at least there's also a metazoa patch to enable beta features on it.

Please note that, the newer the version, the fastest the web browser will be. And the more responsive the keyboard and reading engine will be.

Thank you

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by holysmoer

Thank you

You might want to consider that the Aura One is not supported by the first 3 versions listed. AFAIR, it shipped with 4.0.7523 while the Aura One LE shipped with 4.7.10365. Trying to use an earlier version of the firmware is going to have you searching for "How do I factory reset my Kobo" -- if you are lucky.

My suggestion would be to wait a bit until the next firmware update is released, likely at the same time as the new Clara HD is released. While the current latest firmware is quite solid, support for book statistics has gone missing in action.

You may want to keep in mind that I use my ereader as an ereader. I use the web browser on occasion to test connections to my calibre content server but that's about it. Otherwise, it's suck the ebooks into calibre, update the metadata and covers, convert if needed, check for errors using FlightCrew and/or epubcheck and send them to my ereader using a USB connection. The only exception is borrowing library books where I will make use of the KA1's Overdrive integration. Since I don't worry about the lifetime of a library book, this is acceptable to me -- no DRM removal, no backups, no worries.

[Katsunami]

I've returned to the firmware previous to the current last one. That is version 4.6.9995.

This firmware has everything working correctly; if there are bugs or problems, they're in parts of the firmware I'll never use, such as the library services. AFAIK, the latest version changes some stuff in there to make it more compatible, but they broke the stats; and there hasn't been a fix for about 5 months now.

I'm keeping a copy of 4.6.9995 to return to, in case the next version has problems as well.

[snoeki]

Originally Posted by ItalianUruguayan

4.7.10413But it has some bugs: The browser is oversensitive to taps, and usually trying to scroll will be a disaster. When you scroll, sometimes it thinks that you did a double tap and will change the zoom. Sometimes you will scroll and th browser will return to the top of the page. These things make the browser unusable.

I really disliked this bug, but I have good news: the new firmware 4.8.10956 solved this bug. The fast pageturn option is also nice. I can't find chess, but if you don't dislike the new menu this seems to be a pretty solid firmware.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by snoeki

I really disliked this bug, but I have good news: the new firmware 4.8.10956 solved this bug. The fast pageturn option is also nice. I can't find chess, but if you don't dislike the new menu this seems to be a pretty solid firmware.

Except for the fact that "Disable reading stats" has been removed from the menu, either deliberately or by mistake. Sometimes, the KA1 doesn't go to sleep when the cover is closed. I tend to reset the reading stats by disabling and enabling them why I suddenly spent 20 hours on a book with 0.1 pages read per minute.

(I don't care for the stats themselves, but they give a good estimate as to how long the chapter and book will take to finish.)

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Except for the fact that "Disable reading stats" has been removed from the menu, either deliberately or by mistake. Sometimes, the KA1 doesn't go to sleep when the cover is closed. I tend to reset the reading stats by disabling and enabling them why I suddenly spent 20 hours on a book with 0.1 pages read per minute.

You can Enable/Disable the overall Reading Stats with Settings - Energy Saving and privacy - Automatically share data about the features you use

Originally Posted by Katsunami

(I don't care for the stats themselves, but they give a good estimate as to how long the chapter and book will take to finish.)

If this is all you want, then I think you get this for kepubs just by pressing the graph icon in the bottom menu whilst inside the kepub. You get this even if the above Automatically share... option is disabled.

Caveat: I don't pay much attention to stats, so I don't know how accurate they are.

[Katsunami]

Thanks, I'll look into it.

With regard to accuracy: even without stats, the estimates do work, but they are very inaccurate. The estimate is made from a fixed reading speed estimate, not your actual speed. So with stats enabled (and working), the estimates get more accurate.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

Caveat: I don't pay much attention to stats, so I don't know how accurate they are.

Horribly inaccurate is the term that comes to mind. The time to go does not seem to be change regardless of how fast you read. You're read 50% of the book in 38 minutes and will take 3 hours to read the remainder type of inaccurate. The only numbers I ever pay attention to are the number of finished books and the hours spend reading.

[geek1011]

4.8.10956 by far. It has basically none of the bugs from the previous versions, faster screen updates, better touch accuracy, working stats, none of the USB issues, and the new Page Flip feature to top it all off. I didn't know how much I needed the new Page Flip feature until I tried it. Unless you hate the new homescreen, I would absolutely recommend this version. It was well worth the wait for me.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by geek1011

4.8.10956 by far. It has basically none of the bugs from the previous versions, faster screen updates, better touch accuracy, working stats, none of the USB issues, and the new Page Flip feature to top it all off. I didn't know how much I needed the new Page Flip feature until I tried it. Unless you hate the new homescreen, I would absolutely recommend this version. It was well worth the wait for me.

I've been cherishing the old homescreen on my Aura One and H2O, but I made my Glo HD my guinea pig for new firmware, in the expectation that someday the improvements would be sufficient to offset having the new homescreen. I'm still waiting on the OTA update; will this be the tipping point that convinces me to bid farewell to those much-loved tiles?

[geek1011]

Originally Posted by issybird

I've been cherishing the old homescreen on my Aura One and H2O, but I made my Glo HD my guinea pig for new firmware, in the expectation that someday the improvements would be sufficient to offset having the new homescreen. I'm still waiting on the OTA update; will this be the tipping point that convinces me to bid farewell to those much-loved tiles?

I was about to revert to an older version due to all the bugs in 10413, but this update fixed basically everything and also made my kobo noticeably faster (with the side effect of a bit more ghosting for certain menus). It really depends how much you value the old homescreen and the games, and whether you are having any major issues or missing any features you want with the old firmware.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by geek1011

4.8.10956 by far. It has basically none of the bugs from the previous versions, faster screen updates, better touch accuracy, working stats, none of the USB issues, and the new Page Flip feature to top it all off. I didn't know how much I needed the new Page Flip feature until I tried it. Unless you hate the new homescreen, I would absolutely recommend this version. It was well worth the wait for me.

Hm... if the reading stats can still be reset if necessary as said above, I'll try this firmware. I'll keep 4.6.9995 as a backup, as for me, that firmware just works. If there are any problems, they are in parts I'm not using.

===

For people wanting to know the accuracy of the To Read Time stats: it's perfectly accurate. Today I hit a chapter for which the KA1 (on firmware 4.6.9995) estimated exactly an hour of reading time. I read the chapter, and it did take me exactly one hour (and two minutes to put up some water and pour a cup of coffee). It is -only- accurate if stats are working and recording though, so the reading can calculate your average reading speed over time. If it can't due to broken or disabled stats, it just uses 'some' average that never changes, which in my case, is too fast as I take more time than the TRT estimates.