I used KOReader for my Kindle and I never looked back. The software that Amazon ships is simply insulting. It's like when I installed Linux on my laptop instead of Windows. KOReader is a massive upgrade for any Kindle.
It also has a cli to let you push docs over WiFi. Oh, and a HN reader. I have another repo with the user space I use, but need to clean that up before making it public.
Wow. This is rad, well done. I've been trying to find an alt OS for my Clara Colour and this looks great. Being able to author apps means I can finally add a way to review my highlights/quotes and search them with ease.
Edit: damn, just saw the BW note. It looks like the Clara Colour would be blocked by Cobalt...
I can't and don't want to maintain all software I use. I need to be picky.
There's a big difference between putting money or time into a community of builders and learning in the process (myself or growing others) and maintaining a vibe coded project. That's why I want to know right away which projects are vibe coded so that I don't put any effort into them.
You're free to apply different criteria to software you use, but we're talking about having information to make an informed decision here.
I am actually hoping this is a future where it does become possible. At least on top of what is generally more-than-good-enough (Linux kernel, base GNU system with the compiler toolchain, basic desktop environment...).
So I'd like to have fully reproducible builts for a dozen or two apps I use seemlessly integrated into my laptop and phone update mechanisms. And yes, my smart TV, router, ereader and note-taking apps...
However, infinite forking also means harder to benefit from others' improvements.
I'd definitely be interested in moving towards such setup if I could reliably and easily accomplish it. There are already people who vibe code all the tools they need.
Personally, so far I got best results by carefully selecting a small number of apps and devices with good track record and community around them (think Emacs that's been around for decades, but also KOReader, Linux, AntennaPod on Android and many others) and supporting those in various ways. I might vibe code an extension or config for the apps, but then I still understand what it does and why.
AI is yet to change that. I use LLMs daily at work, but software maintenance remains problematic. Producing stable software in unstable times is actually what pays my bills.
Edit: And yes - if you fork, upstreaming is a problem. It's unfair for original software maintainer to need to review, test and integrate vibe coded code.
> Tested on one device: the Kobo Clara BW (N365, device code 391), firmware 4.45.23697. Every device write is gated on an exact match of framebuffer identity, geometry, device code, serial model prefix, firmware version and kernel release, so a different reader is refused rather than guessed at.
I can't stop reading "gated" on LLM output lately.
Was it the "AI Command Center" app that gave it away? That could actually be pretty cool. Read a book on the deck with the vibemill running in the background.
Very cool and definitely useful. I'm not the audience but I'll say: I like my ereader to just have books that sync. That is all. It's my library room and peace time, the last thing I need is Claude to distract me.
There's a contingent of enthusiasts who, once they find out a device runs Linux or can run Linux, seems determined to expose a terminal on it. I don't know why someone needs to SSH into their toaster, but damned if they're not gonna do it, just because they can.
This isn't Normie News! I think you are on the wrong site!
The street finds its own use for things is the excitement that we don't know what is possible, and that we ought be free to try. The amazing suite of software here sure looks like self evident proof about how exciting it is when we can go further, to me. I love the LLM prompt sidekick; super neat as an ambient display.
It's really sad how HN is so vocally anti-hacker, is so conservative, shows up so regularly to declare alliance to anti-possibility, to anti-features. For some people, they don't only fail to be interested, they are expressly anti interested, the only thing they want is for everyone else to have to live as constrained and unexplorarive and unthoughtful as they are. I don't get it. Conservatism is a wicked disease, imo.
I think the distaste is more against feature bloat. This sub-thread is reacting to dedicated e-readers succumbing to becoming full-fledged app-running devices. Is the refresh rate on an e-ink display even suitable for general computing?
Plus, isn't it fairly old hat to get root access on a Linux consumer device and then running whatever you want on it? Oh, it makes for a neat party trick you could make an Action Retro YouTube video out of. But perhaps people are just jaded since they've seen it done on a million types of devices by now. Maybe there are more interesting ways, and things, to hack.
"Bloat" people strike me as similar to wikipedia "notability" concerned people. It's a whole realm of thinking focused on deleting. Which yeah, sometimes that's important too! That's a great way to assess architectures. But this feels like such a general field, of so much, and to be immediately putting up fences around what we will and will not consider: I'm not here for it. Worthless, anti-worth finding exercise. Just why?
That's their point though. The hacker ethos doesn't ask "should I do this" it asks "can I do this", and that's kind of beautiful when it's not scaled up to a corporate level.
As other noted, apart from us being on HackerNews, if my toaster does and/or can run Linux, I want to have full control over any software running in my home.
If a toaster needs to just be a good toaster, it sure as hell does not need a SoC than can run Linux, and I might give it the benefit of the doubt and consider its FW closely tied to HW.
In my personal experience, this can help in case the books are little technical and you have to switch to my laptop/mobile to get more information about the topic, which ends up consuming more time it should.
I went through a whole design phase with ChatGPT on the idea of using an old Kobo as a low-distraction TV remote for my dad. The idea is that it would interface with a computer media server thing, be more legible than a traditional remote, and not be an app on his phone that would immediately send him into his phone.
Ended up being more involved than the benefit it would bring, especially considering that these media server programs know how to interface with the traditional remote over HDMI (if you have the right graphics card or a dongle) and show the selection UI on screen like a smart TV.
Anyway, my response is "you don't necessarily have to complicate your e-reader, instead you have the option of making it not an e-reader."
Even if you want it for just books, there are benefits to installing things like KOReader (way better ebook reader than the default). This allows you to sync with Calibre, etc.
Years ago, it was practically a hobby of mine to go to my local Goodwill, and find an extremely cheap old used Kobo and find someone to donate it to. Now I'm thinking of getting old Kobos just for the eink display so I can run simple apps on it - while continuing to use my regular Kobo as an ereader.
No, the whole point is the e-ink screen. Kindle has had a web browser since the very first version, and people have managed to read books on it just fine without distractions.
In the case of the kobo, it is firstly a much more open platform than kindle. Secondly, existing projects have made much more performant reader apps than the stock one. Basic kobo (nickel) is a bit slow and can be even slower with a “bad” EPUB file (you will come across many online as they are often auto generated from other sources and are essentially a collection of html files). Installing a third party reader can make page flips and re-renders significantly faster and smoother as well as remove all unnecessary network processes
For the unaware, there is an existing solution that integrates with Kobo's native software (Nickel).
It has been maintained for years, and it supports every Kobo AFAIK.
It's called NickelMenu, and it's great. I'm in the Kobo ecosystem because of NickelMenu and Plato.
One note if you're thinking about getting a kobo due its relative openness: consider getting a two-core device. I did not do my homework and got a Clara BW because I don't want the color display. Later I found out that color is the only one with the two-core CPU.
but also note that a color e-reader will have significantly worse contrast than a black and white model, which negates the usefulness of the device to people like me.
Hey, author here. NickelMenu is terrific and Cobalt uses it to show the menu item in the default Kobo menu. It's just that Cobalt and NickelMenu are not the same in terms of project goals.
I created this as I could not find anything existing that gives the capabilities I wanted. I read several things downloaded over web apart from books on my Mac and phone, which I would prefer to do on an eInk display. Search papers on arxiv and read them offline later, Substack, even spending a lot of time on chess puzzles, monitor my Claude/Codex remotely, generate explainer audiobooks and listen to them on my bluetooth speaker etc.
The longer battery and the display makes some use cases really shine and I wanted to create apps for my own Kobo and potentially helpful for others as well.
Thank you for the kind words. I will add a page to the project explaining the differentiation.
NickelMenu is a mature project and perfect at what it does, we just have different goals. NickelMenu is designed to extend Kobo's stock interface. Cobalt is designed to be an app platform like Android has for example. I wanted app creators to just write their app logic and not build things like a UI toolkit for their apps, app lifecycle and rendering support (framebuffer drawing, partial eInk refreshes, touch input handling etc.), bluetooth handling, sensor and more. Anything launched through NickelMenu like KOReader or Plato have to implement these on their own.
AFAIK NickelMenu command actions spawn arbitrary shell cmds that inherit root from Nickel, we avoid it by running apps as separate unprivileged processes with declared capabilities like network, storage, audio, fronlight etc.
I also wanted to provide ability to quickly build apps with the SDK and our simulator to test apps on before putting it on the real device, an app store to get new apps over the WiFi after the initial USB install.
This was more oriented on making my life easier, say I have an app idea that I want on my Kobo tomorrow and how quickly can I bring it live on the device. The 'you can run apps' I wrote was meant to signify anyone can now create apps using the SDK without bothering about the device specific bits and publish them and install it via Cobalt's app store. I hope this clarifies things.
No, an LLM coding agent created this. You're not doing any QA. You're not even writing the release notes.
I hate people saying "I created this" when all they did was write some prompts and shove an LLM coding agent this way or that when it stumbles or asks a question.
You also clearly decided to not "waste" tokens on having the AI make test suites, or on having another agent review the PRs the first agent is writing.
The biggest problem with all this vibecoded crap: it's all worthless because the project leader doesn't even remotely prioritize stability and reliability. With almost every release the AI has broken something that was coded long ago, or is on try #3 at attempting to fix a problem, and the person running the AI doesn't care. "Ship it!"
No, not really. If you used an LLM you didn't actually make anything. It's like if one commissions a work of art: yes, it wouldn't exist if not for your actions, but no, you didn't make it.
Yes and no. I ported software for an artwork that I had previously created to use a new framework for a new artwork. For that first port, I pair programmed with an LLM and made sure I read and critiqued everything. I was using Sonnet, so I had to give a lot of direction. With a subsequent artwork, I used Opus to change platforms (moving to a much smaller SoC) and dropped the previous framework to write it in C to make it significantly faster and less RAM intensive. I also let it build a web UI to help me develop the behavior of the artwork. I do not claim to have written the software for that new artwork, but I definitely made the artwork, and in fact, arguably could have made it faster and more deterministically, but by offloading the coding I was able to focus on other aspects, and merely manage it. It is a blurry line. If the the creator of this Kobo framework used an LLM, I would still give them co-credit for it because it was up to them to drive the development of it. If it is garbage (like a previous commenter seemed to imply because it lacks tests), then that is on them. If it is not garbage, then that is also on them. I have a Kobo reader and was just contemplating using an LLM to expand its functionality. Because of this creator, I will try their work instead. I think it is entirely appropriate to give them some credit.
This kind of "purity" argument is absolutely toxic. We've seen it with the vietnam paper comparing ORMs to SQL, etc. etc. Please stop this. You didn't hire him, you certainly aren't willing to give him a salary for him to live off of.
If you want to complain about LLMs used in software, advocate for a voluntary LLM disclosure published in the docs someplace, so people can make informed decisions.
I mean, just think about cameras and photography. there's talented photographers, they know how to adjust cameras, they understanding lighting and composition, and yet the camera is what is actually producing the photo... but it's not taboo at all, for anyone to claim credit for taking a photo, no matter their skill level or the quality of the result. It's generally accepted that 'using the tool' is part of the process.
if someone said "i created this photo" it might sound like an odd choice of words, but you wouldn't find the need to 'set them straight' by explaining their camera is actually what created the photo.
you can be a hater all you want, but you're just as annoying as the thousands of vibe-coded projects that are annoying you.
Oh my. Don't you think that code generated by an LLM has nothing to do with "hackers"? And once/if you realize that, don't you immediately see that they're right? Maybe not in the way they say it, but otherwise - they're absolutely right.
Very nice project. I looked at it with the aide of Claude. I was interested in porting the Chess game that Claude helped me make for NickleMenu that runs on my Kobo Elipsa Gen1. From my understanding of Claude's analysis it would be difficult to port the chess game because each Cobalt app is sandboxed, and my app would not be able to spawn the Stockfish engine that my Chess (Nickle menu) game needs to run.
Is that an erroneous conclusion?
Also I probably could not port my Tailscale client to Cobalt for the same reasons.
I kinda creates a separation. Perhaps that is by design: Cobalt = very secure, Nickle = more open but more risk.
Finally the Elipsa Gen1 does not seem to be included in the supported platforms.
Thanks. Cheers from Canada!
Thanks! Can you please create two separate issues in the project for both Elipsa Gen1 support and the other for the stockfish and tailscale client implementation support. Would love to discuss and collaborate with you on both. I would need your help to test on the actual Gen1 device.
There are current issues and PRs for Clara HD and Color devices support so we can take it up by common generations.
I haven’t had a chance to compare side by side, but people say that if you primarily read books/prose, the BW version is better because the screen is more crisp compared to the color version, which is still a bit blurry when you read books. That’s why I ordered BW. Did anyone compare these two side by side in real life for simple text?
It is maddeningly impossible to get an ereader with all three of these features: b&w screen for maximum crispness; physical buttons for reliable page turns; modern processor for speed.
It runs Android. It's a Chinese company and comes with a bunch of pre-installed apps, but I just blocked its abilities to phone home and use Koreader. It's been great for me
https://goodereader.com/blog/product/onyx-boox-go-7-bw
"The Onyx Boox Go 7 is a dedicated e-book reader with a black and white e-paper display. This device has the same specifications and software as the Go 7 Color Gen 2, except that this model doesn’t have a Kaleido 3; instead, it uses the latest generation Carta 1300 e-paper panel, which increases responsiveness. The key selling points of this model are the physical page-turn buttons and Google Android 13, as well as full access to the Play Store. For those of you who want an e-reader that doesn’t lock you into a specific ecosystem, this deserves a look."
I personally use a Moaan 7. Android and does everything i ask it (I just use FDroid apps though). But do bear in mind it doesnt seem to run apps in the background at all. Just whats onscreen. Battery life is extremely long (probably not unrelated)
I rage quit the Boox because the page turn buttons were the same for both landscape and potrait, which meant that one direction was illogical. There were user patches but it just made me so annoyed that when a friend expressed interest in mine, I just gave it way. Maybe it's fixed now but so damn infuriating.
Yeah thinking about an pocketbook era lite but apparently can feel a bit sluggish. Might have to unfortunately wait and hope for kobo to release something along the lines of a vision bw.
I'm happy with my Kobo Clara Colour. As far as the specs go, both are 300 PPI when displaying black and white. I took a picture of my screen from as close as my phone would allow - the lens was basically touching the e-reader [1]. My eyes can't really focus at this distance anyway, so I can't complain. I don't use the colour screen much, but seeing the book covers in colour is fun for me.
I compared. On the color version, the text seems to have a slightly fine mesh or rippled texture. There's no huge difference, but I prefer the black-and-white version
Yes, I replaced a B&W Sage with the Libra Colour, and used them for a bit side-by-side. Contrast (not sharpness) of B&W text is slightly worse with the color one, but not by so much that you'd notice it if you weren't comparing them next to each other. The resolution of actual color is worse, but obviously you can't get color at all on the B&W one, so hard to argue that this is a downgrade.
Unless you're a real contrast freak, I think most people would be slightly happier with the color than the B&W; but it's definitely not worth paying extra for.
I have a Libra 2 and a Libra Colour. I generally don't notice a difference in crispness, though the effective resolution of the colour's screen is lower. There is a huge difference in the contrast, and you will probably want to use the frontlight even in a reasonably bright environment.
I had a Kobo Libra 2. It broke and I replaced it with a Kobo Libra Colour. The biggest difference is that the Libra Colour is unusable without the backlight turned on, since the screen is so dark. The Libra 2 had a pretty white background without the backlight, whereas the Libra Colour has a grey background. I don't know if the Clara Colour also has a really dark screen or not.
> Did anyone compare these two side by side in real life for simple text?
Yes, I have - I have a Kobo Libra 2 (BW), Boox Go 7 II (Color - same screen as color Kobos) and Boox Note Air 3 (Color).
The issue isn't crispness really - when rendering B&W content the crispness is about the same. However, there's a massive issue with contrast - the Color screen background is very dark and they're basically unusable (for me) without driving them constantly at 80-100% backlight (even during the day). Even at 100% backlight, the page background is darker than the BW reader at like 30% backlight.
This makes the reader eat more battery while being less pleasant for text reading. Moreover, in dark mode (light text on black background) the color screens all show severe ghosting artifacts which don't appear as much on BW screens.
Having said that - reading comics and color books (e.g. programming books) looks great on the color screens. There's just something about that slightly less vibrant "papery" look that's very attractive.
The C is sharper but the L looks more like a real book/paper. I believe as an artifact of the colour screen and it’s called “screenshot effect”. In the end, once you use either for 10 minutes it becomes “the new normal”.
Apparently the "Sage" (which is what I have currently) has a quad-core, but Kobo discontinued it. Sigh, too bad - this was my favourite to-date (needs a power-cover though...).
Off topic, but I don't understand Rakuten's current product strategy. They discontinued their two best devices: the 8" Sage and the 7" Libra 2. What's left are two unfortunately sized B&W readers (the tiny 6" Clara and giant 10" Elipsa) and a couple of color readers that no one should buy unless they absolutely NEED color (I've tried them, and the screens look terrible compared to the B&W versions).
I believe that this is your opinion, but my own opinion (having also tried them, and used multiple generations of B&W ones before this) is that the screens look just fine, and that the slight downgrade of contrast isn't a big deal at all.
Very bad battery life. Maybe 8hrs of reading with wifi off, BT off and only low screen backlight. I need to charge it daily or every other day at best.
Physical buttons are comically bad and often don't register presses.
Built-in book reading app is slow, lacks some critical features and hangs in many epub books. I replaced it with KOreader which finally made the device usable.
It's a great screen size though (9" would be even better).
> Very bad battery life. Maybe 8hrs of reading with wifi off, BT off and only low screen backlight. I need to charge it daily or every other day at best.
This seems like a wildly different experience than I have with it. I don't read 8 hours per day, but typically 1-2 hours per day, and charge it every 2-3 weeks.
Yeah, I mean I'd be interested... but you've got wifi/BT off, so I don't even know what would be taking up much battery otherwise.
My light levels are probably 50/50 6% (at night in bed) and ~33% (other times). I did briefly buy a Kobo remote and found that having bluetooth on for that was very bad for my battery life.
I got about the same - then I got a power-cover and it lasts far longer, it was a worthwhile investment. Although after about 2-years, the pogo-pins are wearing out and sometimes it doesn't connect/charge.
The physical buttons were also great - for the first year, then they started wearing out.
Is there any way to recover a "bricked" Clara color? I bricked mine while trying to install nickel and koreader. Haven't been able to recover it since.
I think you'll need to replace the mainboard with one from ifixit.
Not aware of a debug interface, but in the absence of that, you'll need to desolder the nand module and replace the files there with the help of another owner. The mobile read forums are where you can connect with fellow owners.
Another didn't-do-my-homework mistake: Beware of buying one of the waterproofed models if you want to hack/mod your Kobo. On un-waterproofed models, the case is easily opened, and the main storage SD Card (IIRC - maybe it was a different kind of flash card) can be removed/replaced easily. On waterproof models, the SD Card is under the waterproofing layer, which would have to be cut through to remove the card.
My experience is over 2 years old, so I'm sure some details have changed.
i've used nickelmenu and it's always felt incredibly janky, especially maintaining the config, but also the way it integrates with the native side menu. you end up jamming so much stuff in there it's hilarious
For most of the use cases I would need an app for, koreader's plugin system works just fine for it. You'd be surprised the gems you can find for koreader.
The only “Kobo” I know of is a game which was popular around 1993, a remake for X11/Unix of the old 1981 Bosconian arcade game. A recent active fork can still be installed on modern systems as “Kobo Deluxe”.
I am enjoying the recently trendy Xteink e-readers that can't do anything but read books. An app store and the internet would just make an e-reader feel like a "worse phone" to me.
It can read books quite okay if it’s mostly text. With photos it’s sluggish. I personally like it but there are other better optionsnout there for a little extra $.
I find LLM copywriting revolting, especially Claude's and it is pretty obvious that it is Claude, and even though I might find the software interesting since I own a Clara 2E, it puts such a sour taste in my mouth that I don't want to touch this thing with a 10 foot pole.
If your software is mostly written by the slop machine, fine. I don't have to be upset about it unless I think about contributing and then notice the uncanny nature of the source code. But a website and a README is directly user facing and it is a major disservice, and in my opinion, lack of respect, to generate your website copy with an LLM.
are you saying that you can do a better job than AI when it comes to coding something that is free from zero days and exploits while matching its ability to ship feature ?
not sure why you are being so cynical, lot of seasoned SWE use AI assisted development now.
Frontier models from OpenAI/Anthropic/Google make tons of mistakes. I work with them every single day and you really have to verify everything if you don’t want to end up with overengineered spaghetti code full of bugs.
My reaction was perhaps not as strongly felt as yours, but I agree that it discourages me from reading further when it's obvious I'm reading slop rather than something a human considered.
"These are photographs of the device, not simulator captures" is the kind of total throwaway verbiage that a human would never even pause to consider writing because it "clarifies" something that in the totality of context is beyond obvious. It makes the writing more fatiguing to read, and creates a terrible first impression for a project.
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[ 0.25 ms ] story [ 13.4 ms ] threadhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4ZliC82RtA
It also has a cli to let you push docs over WiFi. Oh, and a HN reader. I have another repo with the user space I use, but need to clean that up before making it public.
Edit: damn, just saw the BW note. It looks like the Clara Colour would be blocked by Cobalt...
It's not that vibe coding is bad on its own, but it makes me worried about project's future (ease come, easy go).
There's a big difference between putting money or time into a community of builders and learning in the process (myself or growing others) and maintaining a vibe coded project. That's why I want to know right away which projects are vibe coded so that I don't put any effort into them.
You're free to apply different criteria to software you use, but we're talking about having information to make an informed decision here.
So I'd like to have fully reproducible builts for a dozen or two apps I use seemlessly integrated into my laptop and phone update mechanisms. And yes, my smart TV, router, ereader and note-taking apps...
However, infinite forking also means harder to benefit from others' improvements.
Personally, so far I got best results by carefully selecting a small number of apps and devices with good track record and community around them (think Emacs that's been around for decades, but also KOReader, Linux, AntennaPod on Android and many others) and supporting those in various ways. I might vibe code an extension or config for the apps, but then I still understand what it does and why.
AI is yet to change that. I use LLMs daily at work, but software maintenance remains problematic. Producing stable software in unstable times is actually what pays my bills.
Edit: And yes - if you fork, upstreaming is a problem. It's unfair for original software maintainer to need to review, test and integrate vibe coded code.
> Charge a Kobo Clara BW (N365) and connect it over USB. Other models are refused, not guessed at.
> Tested on one device: the Kobo Clara BW (N365, device code 391), firmware 4.45.23697. Every device write is gated on an exact match of framebuffer identity, geometry, device code, serial model prefix, firmware version and kernel release, so a different reader is refused rather than guessed at.
I can't stop reading "gated" on LLM output lately.
Anyways, I wish this worked on my Libra :<
Me personally, I just want a reliable toaster.
The street finds its own use for things is the excitement that we don't know what is possible, and that we ought be free to try. The amazing suite of software here sure looks like self evident proof about how exciting it is when we can go further, to me. I love the LLM prompt sidekick; super neat as an ambient display.
It's really sad how HN is so vocally anti-hacker, is so conservative, shows up so regularly to declare alliance to anti-possibility, to anti-features. For some people, they don't only fail to be interested, they are expressly anti interested, the only thing they want is for everyone else to have to live as constrained and unexplorarive and unthoughtful as they are. I don't get it. Conservatism is a wicked disease, imo.
Plus, isn't it fairly old hat to get root access on a Linux consumer device and then running whatever you want on it? Oh, it makes for a neat party trick you could make an Action Retro YouTube video out of. But perhaps people are just jaded since they've seen it done on a million types of devices by now. Maybe there are more interesting ways, and things, to hack.
The goal doesn't have to be practicality.
If a toaster needs to just be a good toaster, it sure as hell does not need a SoC than can run Linux, and I might give it the benefit of the doubt and consider its FW closely tied to HW.
Ended up being more involved than the benefit it would bring, especially considering that these media server programs know how to interface with the traditional remote over HDMI (if you have the right graphics card or a dongle) and show the selection UI on screen like a smart TV.
Anyway, my response is "you don't necessarily have to complicate your e-reader, instead you have the option of making it not an e-reader."
Years ago, it was practically a hobby of mine to go to my local Goodwill, and find an extremely cheap old used Kobo and find someone to donate it to. Now I'm thinking of getting old Kobos just for the eink display so I can run simple apps on it - while continuing to use my regular Kobo as an ereader.
(I'm talking $15 or less).
It has been maintained for years, and it supports every Kobo AFAIK.
It's called NickelMenu, and it's great. I'm in the Kobo ecosystem because of NickelMenu and Plato.
One note if you're thinking about getting a kobo due its relative openness: consider getting a two-core device. I did not do my homework and got a Clara BW because I don't want the color display. Later I found out that color is the only one with the two-core CPU.
I created this as I could not find anything existing that gives the capabilities I wanted. I read several things downloaded over web apart from books on my Mac and phone, which I would prefer to do on an eInk display. Search papers on arxiv and read them offline later, Substack, even spending a lot of time on chess puzzles, monitor my Claude/Codex remotely, generate explainer audiobooks and listen to them on my bluetooth speaker etc.
The longer battery and the display makes some use cases really shine and I wanted to create apps for my own Kobo and potentially helpful for others as well.
Nickelmenu deserves a mention in the opening paragraph and a differentiation of what this new piece of software brings to the table.
NickelMenu is a mature project and perfect at what it does, we just have different goals. NickelMenu is designed to extend Kobo's stock interface. Cobalt is designed to be an app platform like Android has for example. I wanted app creators to just write their app logic and not build things like a UI toolkit for their apps, app lifecycle and rendering support (framebuffer drawing, partial eInk refreshes, touch input handling etc.), bluetooth handling, sensor and more. Anything launched through NickelMenu like KOReader or Plato have to implement these on their own.
AFAIK NickelMenu command actions spawn arbitrary shell cmds that inherit root from Nickel, we avoid it by running apps as separate unprivileged processes with declared capabilities like network, storage, audio, fronlight etc.
I also wanted to provide ability to quickly build apps with the SDK and our simulator to test apps on before putting it on the real device, an app store to get new apps over the WiFi after the initial USB install.
This was more oriented on making my life easier, say I have an app idea that I want on my Kobo tomorrow and how quickly can I bring it live on the device. The 'you can run apps' I wrote was meant to signify anyone can now create apps using the SDK without bothering about the device specific bits and publish them and install it via Cobalt's app store. I hope this clarifies things.
Time to start a F.A.Q section on the website. You could that comment almost verbatims for the question : "How is that different from NickelMenu"
No, an LLM coding agent created this. You're not doing any QA. You're not even writing the release notes.
I hate people saying "I created this" when all they did was write some prompts and shove an LLM coding agent this way or that when it stumbles or asks a question.
You also clearly decided to not "waste" tokens on having the AI make test suites, or on having another agent review the PRs the first agent is writing.
The biggest problem with all this vibecoded crap: it's all worthless because the project leader doesn't even remotely prioritize stability and reliability. With almost every release the AI has broken something that was coded long ago, or is on try #3 at attempting to fix a problem, and the person running the AI doesn't care. "Ship it!"
If there are bugs, etc., that's fair game. Declaring hate for folks because of their approach is not.
On my way to ask all academia and researchers to stop using LLMs for their research. Then it's just llm doing the research.
I don't make the binaries. The compiler does. I just feed in specification called source code.
If you want to complain about LLMs used in software, advocate for a voluntary LLM disclosure published in the docs someplace, so people can make informed decisions.
I mean, just think about cameras and photography. there's talented photographers, they know how to adjust cameras, they understanding lighting and composition, and yet the camera is what is actually producing the photo... but it's not taboo at all, for anyone to claim credit for taking a photo, no matter their skill level or the quality of the result. It's generally accepted that 'using the tool' is part of the process.
if someone said "i created this photo" it might sound like an odd choice of words, but you wouldn't find the need to 'set them straight' by explaining their camera is actually what created the photo.
you can be a hater all you want, but you're just as annoying as the thousands of vibe-coded projects that are annoying you.
the code is open source, why dont you show us what a quality test suite looks like?
There are current issues and PRs for Clara HD and Color devices support so we can take it up by common generations.
It runs Android. It's a Chinese company and comes with a bunch of pre-installed apps, but I just blocked its abilities to phone home and use Koreader. It's been great for me
https://goodereader.com/blog/product/onyx-boox-go-7-bw "The Onyx Boox Go 7 is a dedicated e-book reader with a black and white e-paper display. This device has the same specifications and software as the Go 7 Color Gen 2, except that this model doesn’t have a Kaleido 3; instead, it uses the latest generation Carta 1300 e-paper panel, which increases responsiveness. The key selling points of this model are the physical page-turn buttons and Google Android 13, as well as full access to the Play Store. For those of you who want an e-reader that doesn’t lock you into a specific ecosystem, this deserves a look."
(slower by 2 minutes...)
[1] https://imgur.com/a/cszqi0F
Unless you're a real contrast freak, I think most people would be slightly happier with the color than the B&W; but it's definitely not worth paying extra for.
Yes, I have - I have a Kobo Libra 2 (BW), Boox Go 7 II (Color - same screen as color Kobos) and Boox Note Air 3 (Color).
The issue isn't crispness really - when rendering B&W content the crispness is about the same. However, there's a massive issue with contrast - the Color screen background is very dark and they're basically unusable (for me) without driving them constantly at 80-100% backlight (even during the day). Even at 100% backlight, the page background is darker than the BW reader at like 30% backlight.
This makes the reader eat more battery while being less pleasant for text reading. Moreover, in dark mode (light text on black background) the color screens all show severe ghosting artifacts which don't appear as much on BW screens.
Having said that - reading comics and color books (e.g. programming books) looks great on the color screens. There's just something about that slightly less vibrant "papery" look that's very attractive.
The C is sharper but the L looks more like a real book/paper. I believe as an artifact of the colour screen and it’s called “screenshot effect”. In the end, once you use either for 10 minutes it becomes “the new normal”.
Sigh - I don't want a giant, note-taking ereader - I want something about the size of a pocket book with a crisp B&W screen.
Why do I need colour? I am reading novels.
Very bad battery life. Maybe 8hrs of reading with wifi off, BT off and only low screen backlight. I need to charge it daily or every other day at best.
Physical buttons are comically bad and often don't register presses.
Built-in book reading app is slow, lacks some critical features and hangs in many epub books. I replaced it with KOreader which finally made the device usable.
It's a great screen size though (9" would be even better).
This seems like a wildly different experience than I have with it. I don't read 8 hours per day, but typically 1-2 hours per day, and charge it every 2-3 weeks.
My light levels are probably 50/50 6% (at night in bed) and ~33% (other times). I did briefly buy a Kobo remote and found that having bluetooth on for that was very bad for my battery life.
The physical buttons were also great - for the first year, then they started wearing out.
Not aware of a debug interface, but in the absence of that, you'll need to desolder the nand module and replace the files there with the help of another owner. The mobile read forums are where you can connect with fellow owners.
So the short version: I'd replace the mainboard.
My experience is over 2 years old, so I'm sure some details have changed.
It also wasn't really big enough for comics. So I'm not quite sure what the selling point is.
It definitely looks cool the first time you see it though.
[0] I also heard something about color e-ink having a lower effective resolution? But I'm not sure.
Thanks for the clarification Claude
https://github.com/Podginator/KoboOmnivoreConverter
It took a lot of messing around trying to figure out how nickel fit together. This is much more … impressive.
If your software is mostly written by the slop machine, fine. I don't have to be upset about it unless I think about contributing and then notice the uncanny nature of the source code. But a website and a README is directly user facing and it is a major disservice, and in my opinion, lack of respect, to generate your website copy with an LLM.
much prefer ai assisted development than someone who does it by hand, prone to errors and lacking in features.
You prefer AI-assisted development with errors and lacking features rather than something done by hand with errors and lacking features?
not sure why you are being so cynical, lot of seasoned SWE use AI assisted development now.
"These are photographs of the device, not simulator captures" is the kind of total throwaway verbiage that a human would never even pause to consider writing because it "clarifies" something that in the totality of context is beyond obvious. It makes the writing more fatiguing to read, and creates a terrible first impression for a project.