Free Ink is an open-source collective building the software, firmware and hardware for e-paper readers — every layer ships in the open for anyone to pick up, extend and make their own.
  • AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space
    1 month

    It’s interesting to see the generational shift from every device being an ARM SoC running Linux with BusyBox and a bunch of daemons (i.e., the Kindle, Kobo and ReMarkable) to every device being an ESP32 microcontroller running a (more or less) monolithic application firmware.

    • sabreW4K3@lazysoci.al
      1 month

      Sorry, what does that mean in layman’s terms? It sounds like a step backwards?

      • Someonelol@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        1 month

        I see it as more of a simplification of things. An e-reader was just supposed to be a digital book reader with an e-ink screen, good battery life and possibly a backlight. Current e-readers OTOH function more like a phone with a screen that wasn’t meant to support such an experience. I’m not interested in browsing the web, playing games, and listening to music on something like this when there’s already a perfectly functional phone in my pocket.

        Using an ESP32 just shows that we can strip away all the bells and whistles to keep the core experience of reading a book with an energy efficient architecture.

        • sabreW4K3@lazysoci.al
          1 month

          Thanks for the enlightenment. I hope things like TTS are treated as first party citizens though rather than an afterthought as that’s primarily how I consume novels.

    • JustEnoughDucks@slrpnk.net
      1 month

      It is really all you need for a basic e-reader. However, I am not convinced that it will survive feature creep.

      Esp32 runs out of headroom extremely quickly once audio processing (TTS) and screen annotation/highlighting are involved. Especially if they are implementing high quality partial refreshing.

      I hope they can stick to the basics and make it a great, polished software experience because that is probably be the difference between failure and success of it, not featute-packing.

      • AbidanYre@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1 month

        Maybe I’m the weird one, but I’ve never used any of those features (TTS, highlight, etc) on my Kindle.

        • JustEnoughDucks@slrpnk.net
          1 month

          No I think that is normal, but trying to cover all edge cases and accessibility are quite common reasons for feature creep.

  • Archer@lemmy.world
    1 month

    This looks great but I don’t want to solder anything, when can I buy an assembled and ready to go unit?