E-Note Device (E-Ink, E-Paper, Project Idea)

[Sirius]

Dear All,

I was just curious if you might consider also working on an e-note device in the future. More recently I have observed an increasing amount of e-ink note taking devices like the reMarkable, Ratta Supernote, Onyx Boox Note Air, Quaderno, Quirklogic Papyr, Sony DPT-RP1 etc. Those devices are great because they consume less electricity (more environmentally friendly) and are a great substitute for paper, especially in education. Unfortunately, however, most of these devices (those 13'' displays) seem very expensive and are not that easily accessible (which might be important especially for students, that seem to be the ones most in need for these devices).

Therefore, I would like to ask you if you have thought about this as one possible project to be worth working on. If not, do you know of any project that is currently working on an open hardware e-note project? One of the main advantages of such an open source e-note might be that you could insert your own sd-card as done in the following example with the reMarkable:
http://www.davisr.me/projects/remarkable-microsd/

He has also worked on a free OS for the reMarkable:
http://www.davisr.me/projects/parabola-rm/
[/url]

I am very grateful for any comments on this!

All the best,
Sirius
[url=http://www.davisr.me/projects/parabola-rm/]

[poVoq]

I agree, such a device (that could share a lot of the PineTab parts) would be really interesting.

I think the problem so far was that the SoCs available to Pine64 don't have a e-ink display controller, but with the new RK3566 this is now available AFAIK. So it might actually become feasible once development of a RK3566 based PineTab (or similar) is starting.

Edit: The new RK3566 Quartz64 SBC has just been confirmed to include a eink display interface, and the Pine64 store will also have a fitting 10 inch eink screen for it. Thus if someone was to port a open-source ebook OS to it, the likelihood of a Pine64 eink device with the RK3566 will probably increase a lot!

[poVoq]

This could probably run of an upcoming Pine64 Quartz64 with an attached 10 inch eink screen: https://github.com/koreader/koreader

[poVoq]

We had this discussion a few times:
https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=13530
https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?...light=eink

And a PineTab with Quartz64 SoC and an eink screen would be awesome.

There is now a dedicated community trying to create such a device: https://forum.ei2030.org/


And a lengthy German article outlining their plans: https://www.golem.de/news/diy-projekt-la...56900.html

Edit: I overlooked that this is the English original: https://alexsoto.dev/challenges-building...aptop.html

Also see: https://hackaday.io/project/11537-nekoca...r-displays

[Sirius]

Thank you very much poVoq!

This is great news!

Edit: I've also heard that a Chinese company has rolled out a new color e-paper display, called DES, that competes with the color e-paper display from E-INK (Kaleido). SInce E-INK had a monopoly on the e-paper technology so far, this might be good news for future projects using an e-paper display.
https://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-...-kaleido-2

[tllim]

We had this discussion a few times:
https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=13530
https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?...light=eink

And a PineTab with Quartz64 SoC and an eink screen would be awesome.

There is now a dedicated community trying to create such a device: https://forum.ei2030.org/


And a lengthy German article outlining their plans: https://www.golem.de/news/diy-projekt-la...56900.html

Edit: I overlooked that this is the English original: https://alexsoto.dev/challenges-building...aptop.html

Also see: https://hackaday.io/project/11537-nekoca...r-displays

Thanks on the information.

[poVoq]

So PineNote... Awesome news and it looks like a great product.

A bit more "premium" both in looks and price then I expected, but I guess that is Pine64 experimenting with a different market segment.

I think if they can get a low-latency connection to a PC working, so that it can also be used as an stylus input device, it might be overall a good value proposition.

But IMHO just as a e-book reader and sketchpad the price seems a bit high (but tbh in line with other such devices currently on the market).

Edit: does anyone know if that price is supposed to be the official retail price (incl. typical VAT) or the Pine64 shop "community" pricing?

[Sirius]

So PineNote... Awesome news and it looks like a great product.

A bit more "premium" both in looks and price then I expected, but I guess that is Pine64 experimenting with a different market segment.

I think if they can get a low-latency connection to a PC working, so that it can also be used as an stylus input device, it might be overall a good value proposition.

But IMHO just as a e-book reader and sketchpad the price seems a bit high (but tbh in line with other such devices currently on the market).

Edit: does anyone know if that price is supposed to be the official retail price (incl. typical VAT) or the Pine64 shop "community" pricing?

Yes, I read it yesterday! GREAT NEWS! Thank you everyone involved in this!

I think the price is fine for the first device. It is not made for the end-user anyway and still in the developing process (especially regarding software).

Maybe in the long-term it might be better to decrease the price and make the device less "premium" to also make an e-note affordable to students and pupils from lower income countries. This would really help for improving education in those countries.

EDIT: Have you maybe thought about a price scheme in which people can choose to pay more for the device to make people who can't afford it (and are using it for education, e.g. pupils) get a discount? E.g., choose price 1 to make it affordable for pupils with lower income. Like those carbon offsets you can buy when booking a flight. When enough people choose this option you could sell some devices to pupils for a price lower than production costs.

[moonwalkers]

EDIT: Have you maybe thought about a price scheme in which people can choose to pay more for the device to make people who can't afford it (and are using it for education, e.g. pupils) get a discount? E.g., choose price 1 to make it affordable for pupils with lower income. Like those carbon offsets you can buy when booking a flight. When enough people choose this option you could sell some devices to pupils for a price lower than production costs.

I like this idea.

[biketool]

I have been waiting for years to get this, it is so much better to have a gadget designed for FOSS than half-working hacks like re-flashed rooted kindles.
I want my pine stuff to  e hackable but in this case I think a fast RTOS to wake-write page-sleep would get many days out of a charge, this is the primary reason I need an e-reader.  I like the size, perhaps a solar back or potective portfolio if we can get that to keep up with typical power use.  ~10" seems like a good size for reading.