_______ __ _______
| | |.---.-..----.| |--..-----..----. | | |.-----..--.--.--..-----.
| || _ || __|| < | -__|| _| | || -__|| | | ||__ --|
|___|___||___._||____||__|__||_____||__| |__|____||_____||________||_____|
on Gopher (inofficial)
HTML Visit Hacker News on the Web
COMMENT PAGE FOR:
HTML Hacking an old Kindle to display bus arrival times
miohtama wrote 6 hours 24 min ago:
Very nice post! This is finally news for hackers again.
kakkun wrote 6 hours 27 min ago:
Nice!
Here's my version of a kindle dashboard I set up several months ago (
[1] ). I use it to show local weather data and music data from my media
server.
As for the "color bleed" (I assume it's ghosting) you mention,
periodically using `eips -f` when drawing the image to force a full
screen redraw should help.
HTML [1]: https://github.com/thekakkun/kiiin
mengchengfeng wrote 5 hours 54 min ago:
Woww written in Rust, nice! Very cool, first time I've been tempted
to learn Rust.
nickcageinacage wrote 7 hours 0 min ago:
awesome
johndhi wrote 7 hours 27 min ago:
Yes! I want this so bad. But for the weather or my calendar for the
day.
mengchengfeng wrote 5 hours 34 min ago:
If you've got an old Kindle, this project is totally doable over a
weekend! Especially if you start with only weather data to begin
with.
pilina wrote 10 hours 26 min ago:
Everybody seems to do stuff like this nowadays. Myslef included. I did
have old K4NT lying around and started playing with it. With a little
bit of help of AI (not for jailbreaking though! - lots of nonsense) I
was able to put up little server, which now serves family calnedar
agenda, but it is designed to be modular and I will put more stuff to
it later. I've even designed and 3D printed insert into Ikea 12x18
frame and put a small "blade" powerbank with MagSafe to the back, so
now I need to push powerbank button every 5 days. Internal battery is
in a bad shape now, but I saw I can still buy an replacement. Wired
version was not an option in my case.
ajb wrote 10 hours 59 min ago:
These days digital shelf labels look like a really cheap option; lots
of them look like they require a proprietary base station, but there
are some out there with BLE/NFC - have been meaning to get one to try.
Of course, if you have an old kindle about, reusing it is a great way
to avoid waste.
SwtCyber wrote 10 hours 59 min ago:
Makes me wonder why there isn't a whole category of "public
display-friendly" e-ink devices with first-class APIs...
scary-size wrote 12 hours 17 min ago:
Real nice! Shutting down networking between refreshes definitely helps
with the battery life. I also prevent mine [1] from updating between
10PM and 6AM. Nobody is looking at it anyway. If you search around on
Github for Kindle dashboards, there's a lot of scripts out there with a
bunch of battery life improvements (shutting down daemons, wifi etc.).
I built GTFS based public transit display on top of a Raspberry Pi Zero
and a 2" e-ink display ~10 years ago [2]. [1]
HTML [1]: https://franz.hamburg/writing/kindling-e-ink-dashboard.html
HTML [2]: https://github.com/Scarysize/transit-pi
mengchengfeng wrote 5 hours 39 min ago:
Hah I love the random Pokemon + remaining time for Laundry +
Dishwasher! I'm not usually a big fan of smart appliances but boy oh
boy would it be cool to display remaining time left for laundry on a
dashboard...
siddhartpai wrote 12 hours 43 min ago:
would a barebones html page showing the bus timings and refreshing
automatically every couple of minutes work?
Or is there a javascript restriction on kindle?
mengchengfeng wrote 5 hours 21 min ago:
Seems like it should work. Another commenter said that for their
dash, they had a site that they kept open in the Kindle browser.
Although I did notice some weirdness with using the browser. I have
an HTML endpoint up at [1] , and for some reason whenever I tried to
go to that page using the Kindle browser, it returned a message about
not being able to load the page. And I don't even think my page has
javascript.
HTML [1]: https://kindle.mariannefeng.com/
spinningarrow wrote 12 hours 39 min ago:
A long time ago I made a smart home automation web page for my
Kindle, so that should definitely work.
retired wrote 12 hours 49 min ago:
I donât use public transportation but donât the bus stops have
these signs already? I remember seeing them.
dxdm wrote 12 hours 27 min ago:
Not all of them do. It's also nice to have one closer to you, so you
don't have to walk to the bus stop to find out when it's time to
leave house for the bus...
You could check on the phone, but I could certainly see the appeal of
a fixed display in a convenient location.
retired wrote 12 hours 12 min ago:
I don't really understand, don't you just go out of your house, go
to a bus-stop and wait for the next one? Isn't the bus arrival
display more of a convenience to know how long to wait? For the bus
stop in my neighborhood I see busses every couple of minutes.
tdeck wrote 12 hours 2 min ago:
You're very lucky to have high frequency transit. I've lived in
several places (in cities) where the bus routes ran every 20-30
minutes. So if you don't feel like waiting at a bus stop for 20
minutes, often these days one without any seats, it's nice to be
able to check the ETA.
retired wrote 11 hours 56 min ago:
Got it. I typically use my legs or bicycle to get from A to B.
Don't like being stuffed in a metal box with strangers. 20-30
minutes would definitely warrant a nice display on your fridge!
stevekemp wrote 12 hours 40 min ago:
I built a hardware display, with an LCD and a WeMos Mini D1, so that
I can see the upcoming tram departure times outside my house. I
could use the website, or a phone app, but having the departure times
always present right by my front door is a real game-changer.
The actual tram-stop does indeed have a display, but here in Finland
it might be -20°C in the winter time so I don't want to walk to the
stop earlier than necessary.
Sure waiting ten minutes won't kill me, but I'd much rather wait 1-2
minutes instead. Keep myself toasty-warm indoors.
retired wrote 12 hours 9 min ago:
Got it, I always thought that busses and trams would stop every
couple of minutes. A ten minute wait is indeed a bit too much at
those temperatures.
Living in warm country I don't really understand why people would
live in such harsh conditions but that is a different topic :)
rwyinuse wrote 14 hours 11 min ago:
Old kindles are a lot of fun. I've turned a couple of them into AI
generated paintings that refresh their contents every few hours or so.
I can control the prompts via web-ui, through template functions they
can include things like weather conditions, random animals, countries,
current date & time and even titles of random news articles. Prompt
handling and image generation is done completely locally on my home
server, using ollama and stable-diffusion-webui.
The only problem I've had is that most news articles from mainstream
media are damn depressing, so generating paintings directly from them
gets gloomy quick. I had to instruct ollama to try put a positive spin
on negative articles. I do love my weather-forecast painting though.
Whenever it's raining outside, the painting has rain in it too (or now
during winter it's all snowy).
Battery life is really good too, lasts several weeks. I used existing
"Online Screensaver extension" from MobileRead forums, with some
customizations. It automatically turns on airplane mode after fetching
the image and keeps it on until next fetch, which probably explains the
improved battery life.
SwtCyber wrote 10 hours 56 min ago:
E-ink feels weirdly well-suited to generative art
CamelCaseCondo wrote 12 hours 30 min ago:
You could do imperfect speech to text and have one illustrate the
ongoing conversation.
lifestyleguru wrote 14 hours 29 min ago:
Did you hammer nails straight into a wall like a barbarian?!
mengchengfeng wrote 5 hours 17 min ago:
Hahaha 100%. No 3D Printer and I wanted to be able to easily remove
it from its "mount" for charging.
It teeters a fine line between jank and minimalism.
rga5321 wrote 15 hours 20 min ago:
In case anyone wants Todoist + Gcal events on the kindle, I coded a
simple web app for that some years ago: [1] I am not using it anymore
as I bought a TRMNL display and set up a simple template to do the
same, but it worked well for me.
HTML [1]: https://github.com/rga5321/productivity-dashboard
selcuka wrote 15 hours 54 min ago:
In Queensland, Australia we have solar powered e-paper displays [1][2]
at some bus stops that are very similar to this (much bigger than a
kindle screen, though). [1]
HTML [1]: https://translink.com.au/about-translink/projects-and-initiati...
HTML [2]: https://www.facebook.com/TranslinkQLD/videos/e-paper-trial-hit...
aaronbrethorst wrote 16 hours 3 min ago:
I took an even simpler route:
I rebuilt the OneBusAway iOS app from scratch as a pair of Swift
frameworks that will work anywhere, including tvOS[1].
Then, I started a new project to rebuild the OneBusAway server in
Golang from scratch[2].
Then, I got an intern to build a suite of fantastic SDKs on top of
Stainless[3].
Finally, I got Google to pay for an intern last summer to build a sign
mode UI in SvelteKit that will work in any browser[4].
Easy!
But seriously though, if your transit agency isn't so cool that they
provide GraphQL endpoints to query transit information, I think you'll
find that the OneBusAway Maglev server is an incredibly easy way to
consume your transit agency's scheduled and realtime data, and that our
SDKs and apps are a fantastic way to visualize all of that information.
We're always looking for software developers to help out with our
projects, as well as folks in disciplines ranging from user experience
and product management, to biz dev and marketing, to volunteer some
time to help our underfunded open source projects succeed. Feel free to
reach out to me at aaron@onebusaway.org if that sounds interesting to
you. Our software is used by millions of people every day in cities all
around the world, including Seattle and New York City.
---- [1] [2] [3] and Stainless (which is a really terrific product) is
at [4] [4]
HTML [1]: https://github.com/oneBusAway/onebusaway-ios/
HTML [2]: https://github.com/OneBusAway/maglev
HTML [3]: https://developer.onebusaway.org/api/sdk
HTML [4]: https://www.stainless.com
HTML [5]: https://github.com/oneBusAway/waystation
abstractspoon wrote 16 hours 5 min ago:
Very cool
TurdF3rguson wrote 18 hours 55 min ago:
If they ever reboot that Twilight Zone where Burgess Meredith breaks
his glasses they should do someone who did this to their kindle.
hackersk wrote 19 hours 19 min ago:
This is the kind of project that makes me want to raid the drawer of
old electronics. The power consumption breakdown from hex4def6 is
really valuable context too - wifi being the dominant power draw
explains why so many of these e-ink dashboard projects end up with a Pi
doing the heavy lifting over USB.
I've been thinking about similar setups for kitchen recipe displays.
E-ink is perfect for anything you glance at - no backlight burning your
eyes at 6am, and the always-on nature means you don't have to wake up a
screen. The trade-off of slow refresh is actually a feature when your
data only changes every few minutes.
marsbars241 wrote 20 hours 12 min ago:
Regardless of anything else, I thought we were done messing with the
cursor on websites.
mengchengfeng wrote 18 hours 35 min ago:
Hahaha I love this comment!
thegrey_one wrote 21 hours 44 min ago:
I took an even simpler route. After jailbreak and ssh I just made two
scripts on the Kindle, one is triggered every minute, the other every
half hour. Both draw the same image from the same location, the 30
minute one just adds a full refresh. This way the display is not fully
refreshed every minute, but in time image is degrading so full refresh
once every 30 minutes seems work out fine.
This way Kindle has a very simple job, no apps installed no anything,
just two extra cronjobs to run the oneliner bash scripts that draw the
image. And I use rsync from a raspberry pi to push a new image every
minute. That image is assembled with a python script, rpi side, with
air quality data. Connects to local mysql server, pulls the values and
then assembles it.
CTDOCodebases wrote 10 hours 14 min ago:
I took an even simpler route.
I Jailbroke my Kindle so I can read epubs on the bus and I just ask
Siri when the next bus is comming.
SwtCyber wrote 10 hours 57 min ago:
There's something very satisfying about solving the whole problem
with a couple of scripts instead of building a full framework around
it
nine_k wrote 20 hours 46 min ago:
A pretty dumb eInk display that could do one thing, that is, receive
and blit a bitmap at a given location, would suffice for great many
uses. It only needs a way to connect to wifi or zigbee securely, e.g.
using TLS.
lopis wrote 12 hours 4 min ago:
Such devices exist are are expensive, more so than e-readers.
gorgoiler wrote 16 hours 33 min ago:
This is sort of related to a revelation I had once I got into Home
Assistant.
The usual idea is a that a smart home becomes filled with smart
devices and yet what worked really well for me was having dumb
devices with a very smart brain in the middle.
Buttons, switches, lamps, and sensors are commodify Zigbee devices
and the entirety of the logic and programming is done on the Home
Assistant server. The downside is latency.
MayeulC wrote 12 hours 8 min ago:
Usually you can bind ZigBee devices together. I have multiple
IKEA "rodret" switches bound to generic ZigBee smart plugs from
Aliexpress. Works great, with minimal latency.
With zha, you can bind them together from the Home Assistant
device page.
I usually favor an architecture that can work without Home
Assistant, such as standalone ZigBee dimmers, or contactors that
can work with existing wiring. Home Assistant brings automation
on top, but it doesn't matter much if it breaks (I mostly notice
the shutters not opening with sunrise). Then Internet
connectivity can bring additional features, but most things still
work if it's down.
I'd say it has been pretty solid for years, and I don't stress
too much when I have server issues.
password4321 wrote 21 hours 37 min ago:
> even simpler route ... rsync from a raspberry pi ... python script
... air quality data ... local mysql server
I smiled
thegrey_one wrote 21 hours 21 min ago:
Ok fair enough but considering the Kindle ecosystem I'd rather deal
with raspberry pi than with the Kindle stuff.
PunchyHamster wrote 21 hours 35 min ago:
it's simple if the other stuff is already in place
mbirth wrote 21 hours 57 min ago:
A while ago I've rewritten TRMNL's Kindle-client from Bash into Lua,
optimised it a bit and when doing a refresh every 5 minutes, my Kindle
Paperwhite 10th gen now lasts about 5-6 days on a charge.
HTML [1]: https://github.com/mbirth/trmnl-kindle/tree/lua-rewrite
ryanckulp wrote 21 hours 27 min ago:
awesome work! the original Kindle project definitely has quirks, so
we now offer a KOReader option as well.
HTML [1]: https://github.com/usetrmnl/trmnl-koreader/
lee_wc wrote 22 hours 15 min ago:
This is great! I love seeing e-ink/Kindle related displays. I thought I
saw a HN article about it 'awhile ago', turns out, time flies, that was
back in 2024!
This is the link: [1] from [2] The author went from rendering a
pixel-perfect image on Kindle to building a separate HTTP server to do
it in rust!
Related:
HTML [1]: https://lilymara.xyz/posts/2024/01/transit-kindle/
HTML [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41923753
HTML [3]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37661387
jonmon6691 wrote 22 hours 52 min ago:
I made something like this! Except I have it plugged into an outlet in
the kitchen, so no battery to deal with. It's a little hacky but it
works for me.
HTML [1]: https://github.com/jonmon6691/arduino_busstop
mengchengfeng wrote 5 hours 19 min ago:
Oh your mini screen is so cuuuute! Hey whatever works
hex4def6 wrote 23 hours 14 min ago:
As someone who worked on kindle power consumption many years ago: One
of the (by far) biggest consumers of power is the WiFi connection. It
has to wake up and respond to the AP in order to not get disconnected
every x seconds.
Off the top of my head, I think 'on' average power consumption was
~700uA without wifi, and about 1.5mA+/- with Wifi. This is from over a
decade ago, so my memory is fuzzy though...
Obviously, page changes used relatively large amounts of power. I don't
recall the exact amounts, but it was 100s of mA for seconds.
There is also an "every x pages, do a full screen refresh (black to
white)" to fix up the ghosting issue that the article writer saw.
ge96 wrote 5 hours 4 min ago:
I never connect my RM2 to wifi and it's crazy, I don't charge it for
months. Granted I use it maybe under 30 time a month too. I guess
WiFi isn't necessarily disabled but yeah.
Haven't modded my paper white kindle, I'm thinking at the very least
I'm going to get rid of those forced ads you read when you wake it
up.
nanobuilds wrote 17 hours 51 min ago:
wonder if small amorphous silicon photovoltaic cells glued around the
kindle would provide enough power to not charge every 5 days
thegrey_one wrote 21 hours 39 min ago:
I removed the battery on mine, kept the battery chip and fed 5V into
the battery terminals, from Kindle's USB connector, through a diode
(so 4.4V-ish). Without a battery it needs something that can deliver
at least 1.5A, for short bursts. An older powered usb hub seems to
work fine, hub is connected to my raspberry pi, and I use ssh through
usb networking, no wifi, no battery, worked fine for months now.
mengchengfeng wrote 22 hours 34 min ago:
Awesome tips. I'll try increasing the refresh interval to 2 minutes
and turning off the wifi in between refreshes to see if helps with
battery life.
Side note this also finally explains to me why battery life on the
Kindle is SO good in airplane mode.
rwyinuse wrote 13 hours 58 min ago:
Yeah you'll probably want to turn on airplane mode between the
refreshes. That's at least what KUAL "Online screensaver extension"
from Mobiread forums does, with it I'm getting several weeks of
battery life with refreshes every couple of hours.
jbl0ndie wrote 21 hours 24 min ago:
Could you adjust the refresh frequency based on your usage
patterns? So refreshing less frequently outside your main transit
times. An extension of your current pause at night.
TZubiri wrote 1 day ago:
A little bit of a hijack, but it's hard to find a more relevant time to
post this.
For a defunct startup, I built this exact thing as a product for coffee
shops:
cafetren.com.ar [1] (translated from spanish):
HTML [1]: https://cafetren-com-ar.translate.goog/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl...
adhamsalama wrote 1 day ago:
Why Jailbreak the Kindle when you can just open its browser and visit a
website that shows the arrival times?
The Kindle browser is surprisingly decent, I made Claude Code generate
an RSS feed reader compatible with the Kindle browser, with the ability
to read full articles (for those feeds that require you to visit the
website), and download articles. It also supports Reddit and Google
News RSS feed. This is my new favorite way of browsing the internet.
HTML [1]: https://github.com/adhamsalama/simple-rss-reader
unrealhoang wrote 21 hours 18 min ago:
it will be much less power-efficient, when jailbreak you could
schedule the kindle to wake up once per 15/30/60 minutes to fetch the
new data, set it as screensaver and then go back to sleep.
mengchengfeng wrote 1 day ago:
It's easier to load up a page in the Kindle browser, but more fun to
jailbreak :D
I also didn't want the browser bar at the top.
adhamsalama wrote 1 day ago:
Fair enough. I did consider jailbreaking my Kindle but I am afraid
of bricking it.
thegrey_one wrote 21 hours 29 min ago:
Bricked it few times in the process of figuring out more stuff
about it, but luckily mine has a UART pads and I was able to
restore it every time. A bit more involved as it's 1.8V if I
remember right, but if you're careful it should be easy, provided
you have the time.
mengchengfeng wrote 1 day ago:
Also fair - bricking it was definitely one of my main concerns.
After going through this process though, I'd say as long as
somebody has basic linux knowledge, chances of bricking are
pretty low.
mkmk wrote 1 day ago:
I was glad to see the note about battery life down at the bottom. My
biggest challenge with the old Kindles I have laying around is that
most of them won't hold a charge!
thegrey_one wrote 21 hours 25 min ago:
I removed the battery but kept the I2C chip/pcb, and fed 5V from USB
port via a diode, on the PCB battery connections, seems to work fine.
I actually installed a single wire from USB VCC to diode then +
battery terminal. But you need to power the Kindle from something
that can deliver at least 1.5A for startup peaks. A USB hub does the
job fine in my case, and also connects it to a raspberry pi for ssh
through USB networking, so no wifi either. Use a good USB cable for
power.
BobaFloutist wrote 23 hours 55 min ago:
One thing that's disappointed me is that despite all the excitement
over better and cheaper battery technology, you can't buy a cheapish
drop in replacement battery for e.g. an old kindle that has more
storage capacity than the OEM version.
I understand there's like all sorts of complexities in standards,
form factors, voltage, wattage, etc, but I really wish I could
upgrade my old devices like that.
bpmct wrote 1 day ago:
I haven't developed on the Kindle ecosystem, but with old Nook
devices I am able to set a screensaver, alarm, and put the device
into deep sleep between refreshes. This changed my battery life from
~48 hours into 30+ days of battery life even with some old devices.
The "electric sign" app does this, which is where I referenced the
code.
With trmnl, the image only refreshes every 10 mins so the device will
set a ~9 minute alarm to wake the device right before it needs to
load the next update.
The refresh period is also configurable so a slower refresh interval
(e.g. every hour for less time-sensitive screens) yields larger
battery savings
mengchengfeng wrote 1 day ago:
Yeah that was definitely a worry of mine before I booted it up.
Luckily it's still got decent battery life. We'll see how it holds up
in 6 months...
Dyson vacuums and Kindles are not the same whatsoever, but I wonder
how easily it'd be to swap out the battery on an older Kindle. For
our vacuum, all I needed was a 20 dollar replacement battery and the
will unscrew 3 mini screws.
FlyingSnake wrote 1 day ago:
Kindles are fun devices to hack and play with. I can grab an old kindle
for â¬15-20 on eBay.
I did the same last year and had lots of fun in the process.
HTML [1]: https://samkhawase.com/blog/hacking-kindle/
CTDOCodebases wrote 10 hours 8 min ago:
There is also the Xteink4[0] that can be purchased on Aliexpress.
It's just an ESP32 with an e-ink screen.
It costs more and is smaller but when you are done playing around
with it you can flash it with Crosspoint[1], carry it in your pocket
and read books on an e-ink display wherever you are.
[0] - [1] -
HTML [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMoq17-1pJA
HTML [2]: https://github.com/crosspoint-reader/crosspoint-reader
uyzstvqs wrote 23 hours 15 min ago:
Can you start jailbreaking straight away, or does it require an
internet connection and Amazon account first during setup?
Havoc wrote 21 hours 42 min ago:
Donât connect it. I bought one for this purpose and it updated to
a version that didnât have a known jailbreak
simonklitj wrote 21 hours 49 min ago:
Depends on the firmware of the device. Latest firmware (anything
after version 5.18.5.01 - which released in October 2025) is
currently not jailbreakable.
Jailbreak of any firmware after version 5.16.2.1.1 (June 2023)
requires the Kindle to be connected and registered.
Anything prior to, and including this version, can be jailbroken
with no registration.
mengchengfeng wrote 22 hours 23 min ago:
I don't believe you need internet connection - IRRC jailbreaking
steps were plug in the Kindle, drop the jailbreak folder into the
root directory, then choose `Update` from the Settings screen.
The hardest part was finding the `Update` menu item. It's only
visible if you go to Settings, then press the menu button again
while on the Settings page.
Not sure if registering the Kindle was required.
moffkalast wrote 1 day ago:
For the less reverse-engineering prone among us, there are also
similarly sized e-ink displays that plug into Raspberry Pi DSI ports
for maybe $5 more on Aliexpress. They might actually be salvaged
kindle screens.
slig wrote 23 hours 35 min ago:
Do you have a model number or link, please?
bartvk wrote 13 hours 53 min ago:
I seriously do not like people saying "it's on AliExpress". I'm
sure it is, but the problem is quality control so a specific link
is greatly helpful.
moffkalast wrote 11 hours 22 min ago:
I'm afraid I can't really vouch for any specific one, it's been
years since I've messed around with one and suppliers change
their stock constantly.
slig wrote 11 hours 33 min ago:
Yeah, there's a ton of e-ink displays, most of them do not come
with the controller or are replacement for kindle (how to drive
those?) or are tiny.
mengchengfeng wrote 1 day ago:
I love it! Always fun to see the route somebody else took to get to
the same end product.
Your post is making me want to try more Cloudflare Developer Platform
stuff like Cloudflare Workers.
SirFatty wrote 1 day ago:
For some reason, this project reminds me of this one:
HTML [1]: https://engineersneedart.com/systemsix/systemsix.html
mengchengfeng wrote 1 day ago:
Woah this is really cool! Makes me want to create a custom mount
michaelbuckbee wrote 1 day ago:
I love using Kindle's as single purpose tablet/interfaces/displays. I'm
the weirdo who actually prefers the LCD displays vs eInk and it's
incredibly easy to set Kindle Fire's into dev mode which lets you
display a webpage, never turn off while connected to power and never
show ads.
You can regularly find the Kindle Fire HD10s for ~$40
mengchengfeng wrote 1 day ago:
Good to know about Kindle Fire. And hah, I can totally see why you'd
prefer LCD's over e-ink - no ghosting + readable in pitch dark would
be a sweet upgrade to the dashboard.
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