Rooting Onyx Boox Note Air

[afainber]

Hi all,

Looks like in the Android 9 devices Onyx Boox have a bug that prevents any user apps from interacting with the Onyx device features via APIs. If you want to control the intensity of the frontlight or the refresh mode, you can only do this from a system app now. This means that the 3rd party ebook reader apps can no longer do this (this is based on the developer of one such app).

Do you know if there is already a confirmed method to root the Android 9-based Boox devices? After we root them, we can add any apps we'd like to the system partition and these features should start working again.

[this_is_sus]

I have Note 3 and have been looking for a way to root. Coming up short.

[james_]

Although I'm sure it will be possible, why would you need root on these devices?? One swipe down and you can adjust front light and refresh rate in any app...I have rooted other devices but only when liberation is really required, for a specialist bit of hardware like this that runs most apps it seems largely pointless, so what am I missing?

[M4H35H]

Night mode, maybe

[afainber]

Originally Posted by james_

Although I'm sure it will be possible, why would you need root on these devices?? One swipe down and you can adjust front light and refresh rate in any app...I have rooted other devices but only when liberation is really required, for a specialist bit of hardware like this that runs most apps it seems largely pointless, so what am I missing?

Some apps have a need to refresh the page as part of their operation. Without root, they could not do that.

Some apps run in full screen. Without allowing adjusting the frontlight from within the app, it's very cumbersome to do that in such a mode.

There are all sorts of other behaviors that you can't modify without root. For example, Note Air automatically wakes up when you disconnect it from power. This is not something I like and (as far as I know), such a thing can only be changed with a root.

You may not need root for your use patterns and requirements, but I (and others) do.

[james_]

Originally Posted by afainber

Some apps have a need to refresh the page as part of their operation. Without root, they could not do that.

Some apps run in full screen. Without allowing adjusting the frontlight from within the app, it's very cumbersome to do that in such a mode.

There are all sorts of other behaviors that you can't modify without root. For example, Note Air automatically wakes up when you disconnect it from power. This is not something I like and (as far as I know), such a thing can only be changed with a root.

You may not need root for your use patterns and requirements, but I (and others) do.

Thanks, good to know. I think I can live with using normal Android controls to manage the screen or the control ball in full screen apps, and luckily I don't have a Note Air so I'm not suffering from having to have keep plugging it into power often to keep it alive That kind of thing can be really irritating. Do keep us posted on how you get on, if I could use the fingerprint sensor without having to resort to an Onyx account, I might consider it...

[rantanplan]

Originally Posted by afainber

Hi all,

Looks like in the Android 9 devices Onyx Boox have a bug that prevents any user apps from interacting with the Onyx device features via APIs. If you want to control the intensity of the frontlight or the refresh mode, you can only do this from a system app now. This means that the 3rd party ebook reader apps can no longer do this (this is based on the developer of one such app).

Do you know if there is already a confirmed method to root the Android 9-based Boox devices? After we root them, we can add any apps we'd like to the system partition and these features should start working again.

Shit, is that the reason why the Kindle App doesn't observe the "blink every screen change" I configured on my Poke 2 Color? I really hoped I could get rid of the color ghosting this way.

[afainber]

Originally Posted by rantanplan

Shit, is that the reason why the Kindle App doesn't observe the "blink every screen change" I configured on my Poke 2 Color? I really hoped I could get rid of the color ghosting this way.

Well, it's even more basic than that. To implement "blink every screen change" (which I like too), the app developer would need to integrate with the Onyx SDK, as Onyx (pretty much just like everyone else on e-ink) has proprietary screen-related system calls.

Therefore, the Kindle app will never have such functionality on Onyx Boox e-ink devices (unless Onyx suddenly moves away from the currently method, which is unlikely as they had it from the very first e-ink Android device they had).

AlreaderX has successfully integrated with the latest version of the Onyx APIs last week, so if you don't care about converting your .mobi files to something AlreaderX can display (epub, I guess) and if you are fine with AlreaderX's functionality, I'd suggest to take a look.

[takax]

I tried two methods.

1. Apply a battery of ZenPad
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ab_...ew?usp=sharing

2. Connect battery cable to USB directly.

I know 5.0 voltage may cause malfunction, but it's working now.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Bwu...ew?usp=sharing

Both of two methods are working fine.

Here is another FrankenMax.

Thank you.