6 inches is the bare minimum for an e-reader lol
Open Book Touch: open-source e-reader
31–40 of 59 posts
Re: Open Book Touch: open-source e-reader
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
They're working with the crosspoint team. The official hardware (if you buy through their website or amazon) is not blocked. Only Aliexpress offerings. But yes, they are coming with a FRONTlit option. Although it'll also have a touchscreen and no front buttons. I'm hoping maybe in a year or so they make an actual successor with the same button layout, no touchscreen (or with a touchscreen but still with all the butto…
Oh ok but why do they block the Ali ones then? I don't think they're on Amazon here in Spain. And if I have to order from China I'd greatly prefer Ali express because they have good consumer protection. And yes I meant front light sorry. I didn't know that one won't have buttons.
They're just blocked from OTA updates, you can flash whatever you want on the sdcard and then unlock OTA. (I did this yesterday with an aliexpress version x4)
Re: Open Book Touch: open-source e-reader
#33> Cyrillic scripts like Russian and Ukrainian are supported via GNU Unifont, along with Arabic and Hebrew.
So much for proper typography...
I guess it's still useful for an ocasional Cyrillic word inside an English text, but reading a book set in GNU Unifont is not going to be a pleasurable experience.
Re: Open Book Touch: open-source e-reader
#34This looks nice - I think ‘small enough to be pocketable’ is an important form factor. Reading preferences are a very personal thing, and for people like me - who feel they internalize more effectively when reading from a physical book better than when reading from a screen - this form factor makes owning one more worthwhile.
I have always wondered why the form factor that has been settled on for e-readers was ‘book-like’, other than the obvious screen-size advantages. I wonder if there is a better form-factor out there and if anyone has any ideas. Electronic devices don’t need to resemble the thing they are replacing, and it’s sometimes better that they don’t.
I know a lot of people lust after the clamshell e-reader imagined in the film It Follows. [1]
The haptics of a physical book are, I think, what helps me better remember them, because memory is intrinsically linked non-digital sensory information like touch, and smell.
I’ve personally tried a few prototypes to try to bring unique sensory inputs to individual books read digitally to help me remember each one better: converting an AliExpress Game Boy into one to enable more haptic and visual differentiation; generative ambient & binaural music that is automatically created based on the text shown.
Each did help, to an extent, in preventing the way everything I read on an e-reader slightly blurs into indistinct memories of ‘reading generally’, rather than ‘reading this specific book’.
Maybe the e-reader has to be as personally customizable as a cyberdeck for those of us who kind of need the other sensory inputs. So it’s good that the firmware on this one seems to be open-source, but I haven’t yet read through it to understand the extent of that.
Re: Open Book Touch: open-source e-reader
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh ok but why do they block the Ali ones then? I don't think they're on Amazon here in Spain. And if I have to order from China I'd greatly prefer Ali express because they have good consumer protection. And yes I meant front light sorry. I didn't know that one won't have buttons.
They're just blocked from OTA updates, you can flash whatever you want on the sdcard and then unlock OTA. (I did this yesterday with an aliexpress version x4)
You can. But if you build your own stuff, you can also easily lock yourself out. That whole mechanism that tells the software to look for a new bin file on the SD card and to use that to update is something that needs to be contained in your software. If you forget it, or you get it wrong, the thing will be bricked.
Re: Open Book Touch: open-source e-reader
#36Disappointed to see how many of the comments here are fairly negative. Especially for a site that so values true open source.
While this isn't the ereader for me (I need a larger screen and buttons), I absolutely love the idea and passion behind this project. I will look into supporting, if finances allow, as its something I could easily gift to younger members of the family.
Huge congrats getting it to this point!
Re: Open Book Touch: open-source e-reader
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
They're working with the crosspoint team. The official hardware (if you buy through their website or amazon) is not blocked. Only Aliexpress offerings. But yes, they are coming with a FRONTlit option. Although it'll also have a touchscreen and no front buttons. I'm hoping maybe in a year or so they make an actual successor with the same button layout, no touchscreen (or with a touchscreen but still with all the butto…
Oh ok but why do they block the Ali ones then? I don't think they're on Amazon here in Spain. And if I have to order from China I'd greatly prefer Ali express because they have good consumer protection. And yes I meant front light sorry. I didn't know that one won't have buttons.
I was just looking into it, with coupons and ongoing sale, it is possible to buy the Chinese version for about 7,500 JPY (45 USD) on Aliexpress, while on the official website (and Amazon) it is 13,900 JPY. I am not sure if this applies everywhere.
While there is an "unlock" option, it seems it is strongly implied that you should stick to mainstream custom firmware or risk getting stuck with a firmware forever [0].
[0] https://github.com/crosspoint-reader/crosspoint-reader#usb-l...
Re: Open Book Touch: open-source e-reader
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
They're working with the crosspoint team. The official hardware (if you buy through their website or amazon) is not blocked. Only Aliexpress offerings. But yes, they are coming with a FRONTlit option. Although it'll also have a touchscreen and no front buttons. I'm hoping maybe in a year or so they make an actual successor with the same button layout, no touchscreen (or with a touchscreen but still with all the butto…
(As far as I understood those from AliExpress can also be unblocked.)
You can install custom firmware from the SD card, but you can't enable USB flashing. And the SD card installation depends on the installed firmware; in other words, if you end up with the wrong firmware installed, you may be stuck with it.
Re: Open Book Touch: open-source e-reader
#39> There are no physical buttons on the front That's too bad. For whatever reason I find swipe gestures on e-ink annoying. I currently use a Kobo Clara BW and miss dedicated page-turning buttons. I see they're offering the print files for the case, maybe there will be some pins on the ESP32 exposed somewhere for adding buttons
I guess you can install your own buttons. But yeah, for an e-book reader, this is an unfortunate default.
Re: Open Book Touch: open-source e-reader
#40This is so cool, I love seeing more and more epaper projects! I would love some deeper technical blogs like what Eric Migikovsky is doing at Pebble.
It was surprising to see Arduino vs ESP-IDF even mentioned as a real decision to be made for a market product. The battery life would obviously be nowhere near optimal, but I'm surprised if you could even keep a real project of any scale manageable within the Arduino framework.