This is a complete reimagining of the Open Book Project, but the original mission remains:
As a society, we need an open source device for reading. Books are among the most important documents of our culture, yet the most popular and widespread devices we have for reading are closed objects, operating as small moving parts in a set of giant closed platforms whose owners’ interests are not always aligned with readers’.
The Open Book aims to be a simple device that anyone can build for themselves. The Open Book should be comprehensible: the reader should be able to look at it and understand, at least in broad strokes, how it works. It should be extensible, so that a reader with different needs can write code and add accessories that make the book work for them. It should be global, supporting readers of books in all the languages of the world. Most of all, it should be open, so that anyone can take this design as a starting point and use it to build a better book.
Check out the promo video as well:
https://youtu.be/vFD9V8Hh7Yg
When they say build it yourself, they mean it:
- 3D print case
- Solder PCB
- Compile your own firmware
For those interested, base price to build this might start at $85 based on one estimate linked from the resource.
It’s not just mass production and economies of scale. That’s obviously a huge part of it, but the cheap Kindle devices are also definitely sold at a loss with the expectation that you’re going to buy a lot of ebooks from Amazon which will more than make up for it (and also some of the devices are ad supported).
Mass production. Plus ads on the Lock Screen. It’s $20 cheaper with the ads.
It’s crazy how subsidized a Kindle is.
No doubt Amazon sells Kindles with a thin margin or maybe even at a loss. But the cost to produce them is also lowered significantly by manufacturing large quantities.
You mean the ad infested ebook reader that has less and less features with each version? Yeah sounds great. Buy a Kobo instead and host your own library with Calibre.
I mean those Echo Dots come with a huge hit to your privacy as a cost. Not to mention how susceptible the Echo Dot has been in the past. Hell some expeditious hackers even got the Echo Dot to hack itself.
That version is ad-sponsored though, isn’t it? If you wanted to get it without ads, I believe you need to pay extra.
You can ask customer service to remove it for free after purchase, or so I’ve heard.
You don’t need the know-how compile the firmware! It’s available to drag and drop from GitHub: https://github.com/nvts8a/libros
DIY is like that. If you look up how to make a birdhouse they will tell you you need a saw, a hammer, nails, drill, paintbrush and something to measure with. Having a 3d printer and a soldering iron nowadays is pretty low entry, you can get into it cheaper that buying the saw, hammer and drill for the birdhouse. You don’t have to buy the bambulab printer and the weller / hakko iron. You can print this case on an ender 3 you found in the dumpster. Or pay 10 bucks for someone and they will print it for you. On the other hand you will have a device you can infinitely repair unlike the kindles that are kicking the dust every few year for everyone.
A friend of mine was showing me around a maker space when I was on a trip to where he now lives. They had an entire room full of various 3D printer. They’ve really gone mainstream in a big way. Getting a hold of one isn’t out of the question for a lot of people.
Idk why everyone is even insisting on a 3d printed case, just cut a square hole in a cigar box. Done.
Shit, get a thick book nobody reads and cut the middle of the book out and house a screen inside the 📖 book, glue the pages on the outside together with some modge podge. Done for the price of a cheap novel with a hardcover and some glue and a knife if you don’t have one.
It sounds wild to think about making your own electronic device, but after getting into woodworking I think it could be simpler to build this than a quality birdhouse lol.
Is that $85 for all parts?
Calculate the extra cost if someone doesn’t own a 3D printer (or doesn’t have access to one) or soldering gear.
Well, printing externally costs a few bucks so that is not really the problem here.
Soldering is more complicated but that’s more a learning curve problem than an equipment problem.
As someone who has tried soldering with the wrong equipment (and thoroughly stuffed it up), it’s both. Learning with the right equipment however is a lot easier than with the wrong stuff.
And 3D printing externally can also be a bit of a trial and error process if you’re new to the whole thing.
It’s a fair call from a practical point of view. But I’ll also say you’re very likely to keep using your 3d printer for all other things, so not fair to put all costs into this one project.
Besides there alternatives to buying the printer: friends and print shops. Besides where I live a few libraries let you use their printers (and I believe materials) at no cost.
For the people commenting about prices and comparing it to kindle:
Unfortunately, open source hardware is in its infancy, and faces severe barriers of entry, but projects like this one are really nice in order to further develop the concept and make working prototypes, proving its viability.
I don’t understand, it seems perfectly reasonable - people are just so used to these products being sold at a loss or at cost and subsidised by huge companies.
I would happily pay extra to not be tied to a massive corporation.
Ideally, how would open source hardware look like for you? I mean that as in after it has achieved something akin to mainstream adoption.
This is a great question. I don’t believe it can reach the point of any person simply being able to create their own hardware, unless we’re talking about an utopic future with multimaterial 3d printing in small scale, but I can see small businesses being able to manufacture custom open source hardware on demand, based on open standards. For me, the ideal scenario would be something like going into an open hardware service shop and asking for a device with your requirements, and they creating it for you, or repairing/upgrading yours.
Like with skating, many shops can provide you with wheels, decks, gear. Amazon can sell their one-piece e-books at loss, but eventually it can turn to modular open design where nothing is irreplaceable. It’s a matter of demand. If there could be a good project and something like a big org or a government programm funding it, it would end well. Like, supplying troubled communities with an e-reader? If only there wouldn’t be DRM fuckery, it’s golden.
It doesn’t seem super utopic to think a 3d printer could make a pcb, dispense solder paste, pick and place, and heat it to solder it.
Making the ICs themselves on the other hand…
Rakuten Kobo is a good alternative to Amazon Kindle. I can just drag and drop books, no internet connectivity necessary, no DRM… I have no problems with it at all. Would be cool to be able to load custom firmware, but I do not need to since it already doesn’t spy on me and doesn’t force DRM (3rd party book imports).
Have you installed nickelmenu and koreader? Brings the experience up a couple of levels software side.
You can do this with a kindle, too. I’m not advocating for them specifically, just pointing out that you can use a Kindle in a similar way. I’ve never even enabled WiFi on it. Just drag and drop some epubs on it via USB once in a while. Works great, is cheap, and is waterproof.
Can you do usb drag and drop for kindles? I always thought you need to send the book over to the special kindle email address.
Calibre is how people do this. Install it on a PC or Mac, and it can easily send books to your Kindle and convert to the right format automatically.
But yes, you can also drag and drop to USB like you’re asking. You just gotta make sure you drop on the right format (or use Calibre).
Love my Kobo H20. Had it for about three and a half years now. Full connectivity with Overdrive/Libby means almost everything I read I get from the library, but it’s also super easy to upload any EPUB and PDFs. Plus it’s fully waterproof; one time I dropped it in a swamp river and had to root around in stinky mud for 15 minutes to find it. It was working totally fine once I finally pulled it out.
That’s odd I buy many books from Kobo for my boox reader and most have DRM.
I just want a digital notebook that doesn’t need my phone and doesn’t cost $300 to amazon
I’ve been kind of hoping for a e-ink based laptop device for amateur radio to email via the WinLink system. Emergency communications need to send messages for very extended periods of time without resupplying, so they must take as little power as possible. An e-ink screen could stretch a single charge over weeks.
I came within a click or two of buying the poke, but you need bigger for the pen layer.
$500?
For a digital notebook? With Android?
No, not what I want at all. Like why would I need an OS at all?
It ticks the boxes - not Amazon, stylus, and eInk.
You’re going to need an os, even if it’s just embedded to access a file system and manage resources.
I bought one and it kinda sucked. I wanted a digital library for the tens of thousands of pages of references I use at work, and a sketch pad would be a bonus. It’s a cool device but the screen is just too slow to be useful and the application space for android and drawing is…thin.
I’m likely being an ass, but I’d argue that the most popular and widespread devices we have for reading books are probably still books.
It’s true. Counterpoint: if you move places a lot (let’s say if you happen to belong to a generation of people who will never be able to afford a place - which is a huge amount of people), your library needs to fit into a small tablet sized reader. Can store 5000 books, I do not have the means to move that amount of books every time my landlord decides to make my rent more unaffordable. An ereader fits in my pocket.
You could also ise a library. The ones I have used are free or almost free
If they have what you need, it’s indeed a great option. Many of them lend eBooks too, nowadays.
Unfortunately, living in a French speaking area, my local library network doesn’t carry a lot of English material, so the selection is very limited. I’ve found it to be problematic especially for non-fiction, which often doesn’t have translations available. Otherwise, libraries are great.
Teenage me would be ashamed to see I barely read any books anymore. I used to read two large novels a week, now it’s more like one or two a year…
On the Open Book GitHub I have collections of free books and short stories that are digital only from Tor.com. That’s actually why I wanted to get an eReader, digital only online short stories are winning Hugo Awards now, and then couldn’t decide and got involved with the Open Book is that I wanted a little device to load up with them.
You’re not being an ass. But I think it also depends on the book and the person.
For example: cookbooks I prefer a physical book. IT books I prefer in digital format so I can use the find function.
Fiction books I go either way. I prefer digital because they are easier to get but will browse them at the book store.
Either way having an open hardware solution is very welcome so you aren’t trapped behind Amazon or Barnes and Noble.
I remember reports of Amazon deleting books off of people’s devices.
Yes, but it is surely more flexible to own them. Also, I’m pretty sure my local library doesn’t have the specific books I care about. But yea, librarys are great for discovering and quickly testing new books you didn’t know about
