What a dismal idea that a four-year-old device is non-functional and in need of "reviving."
Reviving a four year old reMarkable 2
61–70 of 108 posts
Re: Reviving a four year old reMarkable 2
#62Several of my notes got lost in the ReMarkable cloud. I don’t think you are missing much.
The reMarkable cloud is crap and has been since the beginning. I wrote a free/libre offline management tool called reMarkable Connection Utility (RCU) that is decently popular, used by several thousand people. Beyond backup/restore of editable notebook data, it has a lot of unique features the manufacturer can't/won't support (like exporting with native PDF highlight annotations).
Re: Reviving a four year old reMarkable 2
#63I still have my remarkable 1 and love it. RM 2 didn’t have a backlight so there was no upgrade reason. I actually like that the RM 1 is plastic, it feels durable and light.
The "pro" adds conveniences, is faster, and somehow is still distraction free. The color features are a subtle joy, although a bit underwhelming and dim.
I've had all, too. I do like the light weight of the first... I'm less scared to toss it around too.
Re: Reviving a four year old reMarkable 2
#64I bought a Remarkable 2 tablet a while back. I quickly realised two things -
1. Remarkable's own software is a steaming pile of poo. Their inbuilt web server for uploading files is extremely buggy and unusable. It's dog slow. You can't try to drag many files in one go, or it crashes. You can't try to upload a large file, or it crashes. There is also a hard limit on the file size you can upload (something like 100MB) which makes it unusable for some heavy PDF files I have. They push you towards paying for their cloud service subscription, which I will never do, just to be able to sync files. There is also no way to just ssh files over because their pdf reader will refuse to read them. All I want is to connect the remarkable every day for a few minutes to my computer and have it sync my files, and there is no way to do that.
2. Most of the "hacks" online are written assuming that you can install toolchains like Toltec on the device, and they are NOT updated for the newer firmware. My remarkable came with 3.15 and while there are some instructions on how to downgrade the firmware before installing the toolchain, they never worked for me. So I stuck with the subpar software and reading experience...
... until I discovered [ReManager](https://github.com/rmitchellscott/reManager). It just worked out of the box, did not require a firmware update, and I was able to install KoReader and other goodies (such as some launcher improvements). It can also transfer large files easily. What's ironic is that KoReader can read djvu files, which removes my need to use large PDFs in the first place. Equivalent djvu files are much much smaller.
Thanks to everyone in the remarkable community who contributed to ReManager and other assorted remarkable hacking!
EDIT: Also must point out a cool thing that I discovered recently - ReManager comes with a one click installer for the Zig toolchain on the Remarkable 2! It is slow, but I was able to compile and run zig programs on the tablet.
Re: Reviving a four year old reMarkable 2
#65There's a project called codexctl that can help you run an offline update to the latest firmware https://github.com/Jayy001/codexctl
reManager is far better for this use-case [0] instead of these fragile scripts. [0] https://github.com/rmitchellscott/reManager
I second the recommendation to use reManager!
Re: Reviving a four year old reMarkable 2
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
i’ll address this as if it was a genuine question. my handwriting is awful, not to mention that my physical notebook management is awful. i’ve considered a supernote nomad as a way to streamline some of those issues. theyre just so expensive that i cant really justify a $500 experiment.
I'm confused. Your physical notebook management is awful, ie. I guess you have live in a house without shelves or something. But spending time troubleshooting an electronic device from only 2022 is easier?
condescending comments really aren’t helpful. while i feel no compulsion to explain myself to you, I will say that most of my bookshelves are stocked with books, and I tend to leave notebooks in random places and forget about them until I need one. then I just open a new one and start writing some more. So I have fragments of thoughts scattered across multiple notebooks. I was hoping this could be a new way to navigate and manage that in my mind.
Re: Reviving a four year old reMarkable 2
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
I haven't tried it myself but I have heard that LLMs can be much better at handwriting OCR than previous tech. This opens the possibility of handwriting and then scanning and digitizing notes for organizing and search.
Honestly, this seems like a good opportunity to just write slower and pay closer attention to the tidiness of your handwriting. Using digital notetaking because your handrwriting is bad is just lazy. If you have parkinson fair.
honestly, this is an unhelpful comment. but thank you for your thoughts - wish I had considered such a simple solution
Re: Reviving a four year old reMarkable 2
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
Examples: it sucks as an ereader, even though the hardware is super capable of it. It doesn’t have a built-in dictionary to look up words or check spelling. You can’t make links between documents or to different pages in the current document. Their hardware is top notch, but I found the software to be so hamstrung that I returned mine after a few weeks. Basically, if you want to have exactly a physical paper notebook…
Good point. I would expect most eink tablets to be good ereaders.
Or at least competent, if not great. I mentioned in another comment that I switched to a Supernote. Its own reader isn’t fantastic. My Kobo is better for that. But it’s fine as a reader if it’s the only tablet-sized device I have with me that day.
That’s the baseline I’d expect from an e-ink tablet. It might not blow me away, but should at least be reasonably useful as a reader. Any tablet that can’t adequately let me comfortably read an epub is unserious, in my opinion.
Re: Reviving a four year old reMarkable 2
#69I did not update my ReMarkable 2 for years either and had probably the same clock issue. There was an article on the FAQ website from remarkable, if I remember correctly, that took me to a step-by-step process by which I could update it. Don't remember exactly how (I think I had to use the cable and connect to PC; which normally is not needed) but let's just say even if at first it seems like it doesn't work anymore and you have to hack it yourself, it is not actually needed.
Nonetheless, this hackabality is the main reason I got mine (although I don't hack it, the optionality and thus probable longevity made the difference in my buying decision. I do not regret.).
Re: Reviving a four year old reMarkable 2
#70Several of my notes got lost in the ReMarkable cloud. I don’t think you are missing much.
The reMarkable cloud is crap and has been since the beginning. I wrote a free/libre offline management tool called reMarkable Connection Utility (RCU) that is decently popular, used by several thousand people. Beyond backup/restore of editable notebook data, it has a lot of unique features the manufacturer can't/won't support (like exporting with native PDF highlight annotations). [1]: https://www.davisr.me/projects/…
> The reMarkable cloud is crap and has been since the beginning
Citation needed
On the contrary, reMarkable's cloud and associated sync functionality is praised regularly in the unofficial subreddit, as is the access Support has when people accidentally overwrite or otherwise delete notes.
I fully understand why some people would prefer to self-host their documents, but to link your own work whilst labelling reMarkable's as "crap" is somewhat disingenuous