Free Ink: An Open Ecosystem for E-Readers from Software to Hardware
Freeink: Open Ecosystem for E-Readers
I am building Free Ink, a fully open-source collective creating software, firmware, and hardware for e-paper readers. Our CrossPoint Reader firmware offers customizable typography and seamless WiFi sync, while the FreeInk SDK allows developers to target any e-paper device with a single codebase. With the de-link board, we provide a repairable, hand-solderable hardware core that costs around $60 to build, ensuring every layer of the stack remains public and permissively licensed for the community to extend.
From the rendering engine to the charging circuit, every layer is documented and open, creating a shared foundation the whole community can build on, fix, and extend.
- imzadi
I got an Xteink X4 a few weeks ago and love it. I've tried out a few different firmwares but haven't settled on one yet. I love the screen and how simple the interface is. It's kind of a pain in the butt getting my Kindle books on there, but worth the effort. It's also encouraging me to buy books outside of the Amazon ecosystem. I've been getting more stuff from Humble lately.
- stevage
Are there any off the shelf e-readers which support this firmware? This site seems to be for people who want to solder together their own e-reader from components.
Also, it does a bit misleading to say "Charging, battery protection, an optional frontlight and a 24-pin e-paper interface, all on one PCB you can build for around $60." According to their own parts lists, if you are build 5 of these, you're in for $63.74 (plus shipping?) So if you want just one (like a normal person), it's going to cost more. And that's still just the circuit board and components: no mention of the outer plastic casing. (I can't find any info on their site about how to get that - presumably 3D print, but haven't found plans.)
- wernerb
A Kobo ereader is as open as I need it with koreader installed. The Kobo Libra 2 black and white is the best ereader I have ever had. (not the color version,,unfortunately a step back in reading quality for normal reading)
- monocularvision
I searched for each of the supported eInk devices and they were all tiny. Anyone know if there is a larger reader (maybe Paperwhite size-ish) that might run this?
- tcoff91
I really like my Boox e-reader because I can install any android app on it. I run Storyteller on it and it syncs position to my storyteller server. So i can listen to the audiobook on my iPhone and then pick up reading on my Boox from where I was listening.
- idle_zealot
I got an Xteink X 4 a few weeks ago and it's a very cute device. While I'm a fan of the hardware what's been really fun is noodling around with building some custom firmware and sync architecture to optimize content for the device's extremely limited CPU and Memory. That's meant a custom format for images and metadata that match the device's hardware and interface needs and an automatic ingest pipeline for building these files from common book/comic formats. Maybe some day I'll even read a book on the thing!
- joshstrange
KOReader support (not just KOReader sync) has become my new line in the sand for an e-reader. I'm currently using my jailbroken Kindle PW5 and loving it.
KOReader paired with BookOrbit is my sweetspot and I love having all the data under my control. If my Kindle died today I'd probably grab a Kobo and put KOReader on it.
This project is very interesting to me but they seem to want to "own" the whole software stack, it seems like it won't support things like KOReader? Or am I mistaken?
- boznz
Lots of the comments here are about porting to older kindles or eReaders, but the firmware is currently for the ESP32 chipset which none of these use.