Having used the reMarkable 1 tablet for over a year now, the hackability is so refreshing to have in a consumer device. The tablet runs Linux and you can SSH into with root access.
The hacking community is quite active, one frequently asked question is how to get and run custom software on the device.
There's the Entware[0] package repository for running ARMv7 software on the tablet. Recently a community maintained package repository, toltec[1] for tablet-specific software was created and is actively maintained.
For Nix users, I've been helping build a Nix-based cross-compile toolchain[2], so you could easily cross-compile a good amount of the 60K packages on Nixpkgs for the tablet. Upstreaming the cross toolchain to Nixpkgs is in the works.
To see what the community is up to, see the IRC channel[3], Reddit[4] and Discord server[5].
I stumbled on some article describing that Remarkable calls home and sends some statistics. I've checked and indeed it does.
My hacking attitude says it is absolutely unacceptable. The good news you can disable it, and I did. But for poople to be aware , this is what it does by default. Can't say I like that part of rM software.
Unfortunately now I've looked for the article and can't find it. If you saw one, please drop the link here, there is more info there.
Apple and Google do the same thing, except they aren't open source or user modifiable. (Well, Apple isn't.)
It's interesting that the second most visible comment on a thread about an open platform product holds them to a much higher standard. (I'm not calling out your comment, but rather the general perception.)
I wish more people would take your perspective for our phones and devices.
Some of us hackers feel the same way. I'm the author of a paid-but-GPLv3+ program called RCU[1] that almost 400 people use because they don't want to, or legally can't, interface with a cloud. I never connect my tablet to the net except to get software updates.
Thanks for the software and documentation you've written for the reMarkable. I've taken a different approach for running Debian buster, but your guide [1] saved me a lot of time nonetheless.
chroot for now, systemd-nspawn as soon as I have time to hack on it later, as I want to be able to switch between whatever I'm running and reMarkable's original software.
I'm really glad you found it useful! Do you think it saved you $20 worth of time? :)
Parabola-rM is really a labor of love, and half of the proceeds are donated to the FSF and Parabola project. It would mean a tremendous amount to have your financial support for independent free software development (and if you have already bought a copy, thank you!).
Would love to buy once I restore access to online payments after pandemic. As I understood you do provide sources if I am correct? I am thinking about porting to rM some programming languages and curios how you've managed with framebuffer .
Ah. I see the issue, the HTTPS-Only mode of Firefox and the Encrypt-all-sites mode of HTTPS-Everywhere thinks that you do, because closed TCP ports on your server don't respond to TCP SYN requests at all, whereas normally servers indicate connection refused by sending a TCP RST packet. So anything trying to access HTTPS on your site will just time out.
Thank you for that tip. Yes, I was blocking all connections to 443 on my firewall but I didn't realize that clients like those had such long timeout periods. Those connections should now be explicitly refused.
I cannot reply to your lower-level comment at the max nest level, but I disagree with you about https.
The contents of the https transaction is not available to the CA.
The data is not available for snooping for intermediaries.
And tampering, while it seems like a silly check, is actually done almost casually by ISPs for a variety of reasons. They will insert executable code into a HTTP reply.
In other words, preventing HTTPS might support the subjugation of your users by others.
Sounds silly but once RMS said "proprietary software subjugates people" and it sounded like weird over-the-top political rhetoric when I heard it. But over time I notice that indeed subjugation is a huge part of our use of computers
> I cannot reply to your lower-level comment at the max nest level, but I disagree with you about https.
You've somewhat misunderstood me, or perhaps not cared to listen to what I stated, and now you're disagreeing with your incorrect interpretation of what I said. I wish you had given a point-by-point argument to what I said, and tell me each sentence you disagreed with (I'll do that here).
> The contents of the https transaction is not available to the CA.
I never said that. I said, "both sides of the connection, and everyone in the middle, know who they're talking to." E.g. if you're talking to Google, then you know that you're talking to Google, and Google knows it's talking to you, and your ISP knows that you and Google are talking.
> The data is not available for snooping for intermediaries.
Yes, it is. See: NSA FLYING PIG. See: all bogus certificates ever issued by a CA. See: "Flame" malware that was signed using a bogus Microsoft certificate. See: <just do a web search>
> And tampering, while it seems like a silly check, is actually done almost casually by ISPs for a variety of reasons. They will insert executable code into a HTTP reply.
How did you interpret this statement? "...that is a social problem and not a technical one. Sure, some technical measures may mitigate that from happening, but ultimately the problem is social and users of that network should stop using it, or start tunneling their traffic some other way."
> In other words, preventing HTTPS might support the subjugation of your users by others.
No, if I don't want to support HTTPS then that is _my freedom_. Would I not be subjugated by a corporate CA, and would I not need to support that for the rest of my website's life? (Yes, I would.) And, again, it is not my responsibility to protect people from their malicious ISPs. The problem is obviously the ISP, not my website. And again, I offer trust and validity checks for all important files served by me in the form of PGP certificates.
> Sounds silly but once RMS said "proprietary software subjugates people" and it sounded like weird over-the-top political rhetoric when I heard it. But over time I notice that indeed subjugation is a huge part of our use of computers
That doesn't sound silly at all, what RMS said, but your interpretation of it certainly is. Do you believe conscientious objectors support war if they are not actively trying to dismantle the military?
I don't support the subjugation of users--I believe users ought to hold all the freedom themselves, including the freedom to protect their communications if they wish, but I don't have to actively participate in the obvious corporate racket of acquiring SSL certificates, and the eternal responsibility they require. I deserve the freedom, too, to host a site independently--and that is what mandatory HTTPS (without a distributed web of trust) will take away--not away from me, because I can always host a site no one visits, but away from users who won't anymore have the choice.
"we need completely distributed human-to-human trust without any corporate authorities."
Just to be clear: I'm not against HTTPS--I would love to have trust and validation to those I'm speaking with electronically. But, the way SSL is implemented today (with CAs) is not something I am willing to support for my personal website.
ok, but although HTTPS has some drawbacks, I think HTTP has many more drawbacks.
I think this is sort of like "lock you car doors". Yes, a dedicated thief can bypass the locks and open your car, but you don't have to leave your car doors unlocked and let anyone enter you car at will.
I think a reasonable middle ground might be to maintain HTTP and do HTTPS using letsencrypt. If one of the CAs does something to limit your freedom, you could redirect https to http and turn it off.
Anyway, it's good to see you're basing your argument on your principles, many people cave early and easily.
There are a few reasons, but since you worded that question ambiguously, I'm not sure if you know that HTTPS doesn't protect privacy. It can verify data in-transit is not tampered (maybe--see NSA note below), but nothing is anonymous (both sides of the connection, and everyone in the middle, know who they're talking to). Maybe the URL is private, but that's a very low bar for privacy.
There's also a problem with how certificate authorities are run which I strongly disagree with. People trust them because corporations trust them, which is already bad, because those same corporations are in-bed with NSA and probably other "security" agencies (which are hard to tell apart from criminal syndicates). If we moved to an HTTPS-only world (Universe, please forbid) there would be an absolute CA racket, and any website could be censored by having the CA revoking its certificate. I fear very much for that possibility, and I completely disagree with the direction that corporate browsers are taking by moving towards HTTPS-only, and especially false messaging like when Chrome reports websites as "non-secure". Firefox, which along with Mozilla is almost entirely funded with Google dollars, is going the same direction.
Another problem is if an ISP is tampering with a customer's connection, that is a social problem and not a technical one. Sure, some technical measures may mitigate that from happening, but ultimately the problem is social and users of that network should stop using it, or start tunneling their traffic some other way.
I provide HTTPS as a convenience for people downloading my software who otherwise wouldn't check my PGP sigs. Browsers like Chrome have false messaging claiming sites are "not secure" and techno-illiterate users don't understand what that really means, and they complained, so I listened but still advise everyone to check the signatures anyway.
Another major reason is that I don't care to support HTTPS for the rest of my life on my personal website. If I were to start supporting it, then everyone will start linking to the HTTPS version, then I could never get rid of that because redirecting back to HTTP requires HTTPS. I never collect any kind of data through my website--there are no form submissions, it's read-only and purely serves .html pages (not even server-side rendering). There's not really a purpose to a secure connection for that.
This only scratches the surface of these problems. I won't even get into how certificate authorities assign, then revoke, bogus certificates all the time--but that happens more than they will ever admit to. If you do a search for that, even just on Ars Technica, you'll find a lot of examples.
My biggest complaints may be summarized as, "we need completely distributed human-to-human trust without any corporate authorities."
In what situations would someone not legally be allowed to interface with a cloud? Something like GDPR, or a personal injunction? Just out of curiosity, I've not heard of such a restriction.
I usually use two squares of toilet paper per wipe. Occasionally I’ll use three, sometimes accidentally and sometimes because I need three. Whenever I use three I wonder to myself how that will appear when the numbers are crunched. Then I remember there’s no analytics for my toilet paper.
> otherwise they don’t know how to improve the product.
Or, you know, they could just ask customers how the product is working for them. Automated data collection is a huge, huge problem and stampedes over civil liberties. We ought to control our computers, and not be controlled by them, which is why I vigorously oppose all non-free (proprietary, non libre) software.
I send error data from all of my web and mobile apps. We catch a LOT of bugs that we don't see in test due to browser differences or state differences. While this may be invasive, it's necessary to deliver a good customer experience.
I believe a gradient exists here. That's why we don't collect any usage information, but error reporting is something I've found life changing especially given how fragmented the experience is across different browsers and devices.
I see your point here, and then I count the number of times I have responded to survey requests or participated in nielsen ratings surveys, even when paid to do it.
I agree, most companies conduct feedback in a completely impersonal way. I tell my customers that my software doesn't contain any tracking or telemetry, and that human-to-human feedback (direct email) from users is the only way I can know of problems. I also make it very clear that I am open to all kinds of feedback. This is great because I get bug reports directly, can understand how people are using the program in their workflow, and can contextualize feature requests and build solutions that fit for everyone.
Users like this because they are actually being listened to by the software's author, there is no overhead to fixing problems, and they aren't being shoehorned into a database.
Of course direct feedback is good. But it's not scalable and you risk of running a very real case of bias towards whoever you're asking. Running telemetry on your software is not "evil" or "stampedes over civil liberties". You can most certainly run telemetry in a way that protects people's privacy and gives you insightful data on how your users operate and interact with your software. I know this, I've worked on an analytics service serving hundreds of millions of users. I'm building right now a feature-flagging/configuration/core metrics service that does exactly that: preserve user privacy and allow developers to learn about their users (not easy and there are some trade offs, like accuracy).
I can't count the number of times I have seen a new product or bit of software and though immediately "That sounds like a horrible idea, how useless" And then later eventually trying it and liking it.
Asking customers what they want can be useful sometimes but mostly people don't know what they want other than a slightly improved version of the thing they already like.
> Majority of consumer facing products collect usage analytics, otherwise they don’t know how to improve the product.
Producers managed to improve products for thousands of years without violating the privacy of their customer. Equating slightly inconvenient with impossible doesn't make for a great argument.
The improvements were stumbles in the dark by comparison — people didn’t even realise colour blindness existed until the industrial revolution.
That said, while I am fine with automated bug tracking for this sort of goal, I absolutely agree that all automated tracking needs to be opt-in rather than opt-out.
Yeah, while I'm not a fan of involuntary data collection it completely makes sense why firms do it. Unskewing data collected in voluntary and self reported scenarios is a treacherous and sometimes impossible undertaking.
Edit: Often times we're not talking about the difference between good data and really good data. We're talking about the difference between useful and useless data.
I don't agree it's a 0 or 1 decision, you can gather analytics in a privacy-preserving way, see e.g. plausible.io [1] or similar implementations that track users without collecting personal data.
I suppose your mattress phones home to tell its makers how often you sleep and with which frequency you do other vigorous physical activities on it. Only way to improve it.
I think that a mattress is a bit simpler than an application with hundreds of thousands of possible interactions. There are not so many different ways you can use a mattress.
There is a limit to what majority can decide for a person and it's called "rights of a person" designed exactly for that purpose.
So, for instance, majority in Nazi-Germany was ok with humiliating and eventually killing Jewish people and that fact doesn't make it justifed anyhow. Majority sometimes disrespect freedom of speech using bullying innocent comments advocating respect for a freedom which we observe recently even here in form of downvoting and it also have no justification what so ever.
>otherwise they don’t know how to improve the product.
they should ask and pay for participation if they wish to know, or they simply don't know, it's ok.
If I wasn't asked about it I consider it a spyware activity and we have no idea what they do with this information now or in the future.
> absolutely unacceptable. The good news you can disable it
Sounds pretty acceptable to me actually
I like Syncthing's approach: In Syncthing, telemetry is enabled by default, so they get statistics and can improve their product. But there's also a prominent info banner about this, so everyone learns about it, and can opt out.
If there is a remarkable person that sees this, please embrace the hacker community. It is a huge asset to have us by your side, and it's a huge differentiator from all the other tablets which have walled off developers.
Also, it would be pretty sweet some part of the API was documented.
They just recently released their toolchain for the reMarkable 2 https://github.com/reMarkable/linux/issues/7
The toolchain for the rM1 has been out for a long time. Since it's just a linux device, there is a ton of existing documentation on how to work with it.
unfortunately, the sdk doesn't work with hi applications yet. the way the screen works has changed significantly. There are community projects that make it work though: https://github.com/ddvk/remarkable2-framebuffer
They already embrace the hacker community. You can ssh right into the device, which runs Linux. And it has USB OTG pogo pins on the side, so you can slap any extra hardware onto it if you like.
Just saying on the website or somewhere else officially that being able to ssh in is a feature and not something they just left there and may remove later would make the device a lot more attractive.
It's not a accident that ssh is enabled. It is mentioned in official documentation (https://support.remarkable.com/hc/en-us/articles/36000266255...) and also part of their promise to be compliant with GPLv3. Would be weird if they suddenly decided it was OK to break GPL and remove ssh access. Not only would the people who bought it because it's so open (like me) try to return it, I'm sure bunch of people would try to sue them for removing features post-launch as well.
It's quite nice. I own a R1 and it's a good ereader and notepad. It brings back memories about the Nokia N700-N9 series, a class of devices I really miss.
Well the reMarkable isn't an eBook reader. That is something it can do, but it's more aimed at note taking. You also have root access out of box, which is not something that eBook readers give you.
I've been looking for an e-ink tablet that I can bend to my will, but the Kindle hacking scene seems to have peaked around 2012 and it's a desolate wasteland of dead links now. That's a shame, because the hardware is really cheap.
ReMarkable is sort of astonishingly expensive, but that would be justified if these "hacks" were officially supported or at least acknowledged enough that some future firmware update wouldn't ruin any workflow I build with them.
Is there any hint of such acknowledgment, or would I be risking $448 on a device that might turn itself into a paperweight?
The company provides a dev toolchain[0] and seems pretty committed to keeping the device open, even the CTO[1] hacks on it publicly, like this crossword app[2] with handwriting recognition.
I have been contemplating buying a ReMarkable 2 as I prefer to handwrite everything/annotate/. The price tag is a bit hefty given the cost of an iPad and pencil and the zillion other things it does.
I've had mine for 4-6 weeks now. I'm not returning it, but I can't particularly recommend it - both the annotation and eReading experiences are significantly inferior to what you'd get with Onenote, Notability, or Drawboard on iPad/Surface.
The reMarkable hardware is nice, but its stock software is frankly disappointing. The hackability is a "plus", but I don't want to have to resort to unsupported firmware tweaks to fix a $500 device.
Specific feedback:
* Zooming is incredibly coarse. There is no pinch zoom, only a button in the UI that jumps in intervals of 100% or more. On many of my documents it goes from slightly too small to WAY too big with no level in between
* Speaking of zooming, the pen controls overlay the document, often blocking parts of the text. There is no way to scale the document to fit in the remaining space. There's not even a way to have the button backgrounds be transparent so you could still read most of the text.
* It doesn't support in-document hyperlinks in PDF or ePub, so your table of contents and index are worthless.
* If you somehow know what page you want to jump to, that's buried two menus deep and frustrating to get to
* Search is very slow in large (100+ page) documents, and results trickle in gradually so you can never be quite sure when you're looking at the whole list. Given that one of my desired uses for the device is to carry around some PDF textbook-style references, this hurts.
* You can't change the default writing utensil, so if you don't like the grainy mid-width pencil you have to change it every single time you open a new document
* There's no pressure sensitivity in the pen
* The eraser works like a pencil eraser, not a digital one. There is no way to erase a stroke, so you'll inevitably erase more than you want to and have to redraw some of it
I've had my rm2 for a few weeks, and I think the software is remarkably bad - but I've yet to truly experiment with the various foss/hacks for it.
The actual drawing and doodling is nice, but there are a number of issues.
First the cloud/sync software will happily let you add lots of ebooks/comics to transfer (I have a couple of comic bundles from humble bundle I've yet to read). The end result is that the disk fills up, and the on-device file manager is anemic and slow. Not only is there no discernable way to clear the sync queue (so as you free up space it gets filled again..) - even if you can sort by file size, you can't actually list file size.
I had hoped to use it, beyond comics, for technical books - but both zoom and reflow of text, and font selection is poor for both Pdf and epub.
Then finally, I had hope it would work for viewing Pdf rpg rulebook - but it chokes pretty badly (on the admittedly quite horrible) white wolf mage 20th book for example.
And to add insult to injury the built in Pdf reader can't be used with the interactive (Pdf form) character sheets.
It can read a "printed" version and allows doodling on top - so it's not all lost. But the end result isn't machine readable, so you're almost better off with a paper sheet anyway.
Finally, reading a standard epub (like "The Star's my Destination") is painful because the limited font/margin/reflow, and the sluggish response for turning pages (a hw button would've helped here). In the end, my aging huawei phone [1] with oled display set to night mode is a better book reading experience both in Kindle and FBreader.
But again, the doodling is pretty good, and the screen is crisp - so I hope something can be done via software. Maybe even just adding a djvu-reader and do the conversion off device if the cpu is truly as underpowered for Pdf as it appears.
I share some of these criticisms, but the hardware is so good and, I think, the harder thing to get right, that I'm optimistic to see the software improve over time, perhaps through community contributions.
I don't have the reMarkable 2, but I preordered v1 and have been using it pretty regularly since then. I've really enjoyed it and greatly prefer it for my primary use case of reading and reviewing academic papers. I find it far superior to an iPad in this respect. Mostly because of the display.
The specific points of feedback you have are common with the v1 device. With the exception of pressure sensitivity. The pen for the v1 device was pressure sensitive. Has that been removed? Of the other points, the only one that I've found really bothers me is being unable to change the default writing implement.
If it has pressure sensitivity, it seems to be a random number generator. It does some stroke thickness tweaks depending on speed and maybe the angle the pen touches the screen with, but my experiments of drawing a straight line at constant speed with variable pressure have yielded a line of constant thickness every time.
I wouldn’t compare it to an iPad. This is much more tuned to helping you think - no notifications whatsoever, no web browser to offer opportunities to do something else. Or, put another way, the fact that it doesn’t do a zillion things is a good thing if your goal is to be able to think deeply.
Kind of like how some writers use ancient equipment that doesn’t connect to the internet to get their writing done.
I second this. This doesn't really replace my laptop or tablet, but it 100% replaces the notebook I carry everywhere for notes.
I've had mine for about 4 weeks now, and I'm still consistently using it every day.
It's fantastic for planning, diagramming (I use this to capture measurements and dimensions for items I'm going to be making in CAD software), getting signed forms, taking notes, and sketching.
The hardware is delightful, even for left-handed folks like myself, where other tablets often make erroneous marks where my hand is resting.
Now, all that said, the software can still come along way. My single biggest gripe is that I haven't found a way to search for text within notes. I'd really love to have an option to automatically convert handwriting to text on save/close and keep that around as meta data for searching.
I may play with implementing it at some point - A large part of the reason I bought the device was because of the open ecosystem. I do software dev for a living, and knowing that I can get into the device as root and muck around REALLY makes it feel like it's mine.
I ended up going with a Boox tablet, mainly because it can run arbitrary Android apps. This means that among other things, installing the Kindle app turns it into a Kindle, and I can also install Dropbox, Google Drive, and Slack on it to transfer PDF sheet music and papers, among other things.
yes! having the option to run android apps is why I am leaning towards something like the boox. im thinking of a setup where i would have the help manual for whatever open on the ereader when im doing programming stuff, and to be able to select some text on my laptop and have it search that on the ereader using tasker and also autoinput to control the app. dunno how well all that will work though
I recently wrote a review on Reddit where I used split screen to code in termux and look at reference in the other. Admittedly Android's split screen mode is super clunky to use but if you're not constantly switching between apps in the reference pane it's okay.
Having a Laptop + ereader setup would probably be a mess to set up with the cut+paste stuff. If e-Ink reference materials is your use case I'd probably suggest instead that you either get one of the Boox models that has HDMI in (Max Lumi does) or if you have $ to spend, get the Dasung e-Ink monitor instead, and use it as a 2nd monitor for your laptop. That would be much easier to cut and paste between your coding environment and reference materials.
(Also, Boox tablets aren't easily rootable so auto-inputting stuff into apps isn't easy. You could solve that by building a virtual bluetooth or USB keyboard with an Arduino that your laptop controls, though.)
good review! yes it would be tempting to go for the larger models for the external monitor feature, but i will be using it for for basic ebook reading most of the time so ill probably settle on the 10 inch since it will be more comfortable to hold.
the cut and paste stuff would definitely be messy but autoinput works without needing root so the only thing i need to figure out is how to transfer the text to tasker. probably something like 'join' would do the job
The prior discussions on this site, especially with regard to the hackability, persuaded me to pre-order the 2. You can still buy the 1 from their site new if you want to test the waters but their customer service policies are friendly. Also, I recommend going to their subreddit [1]. There is also a very friendly and active Discord server where some of the developers of third-party improvements participate - the link for that is also on the subreddit or I can paste an invite here as well. Edit0: s/Their/There.
I've been on the lookout for a great reading/writing/drawing device and ended up going with an iPad. I haven't tried a remarkable, though I do have a kindle as a reference for e-ink displays. As a whole, the iPad is hard to beat:
- Matte screen protector + pencil means reading/writing experience feels just as good as an eink.
- It can comfortably handle large, color PDFs. Other solutions either don't have color, or don't have processors powerful enough to handle rendering large PDFs anyways.
- Both iPad and Remarkable have almost identical pixels per inch - 224 and 226 ppi.
- iPad has polished reader apps. My favorite is Kybook3, which supports auto trimming PDF margins & horizontal scroll locking which makes it super convenient to read PDFs. It can also read epubs and other formats with plenty of knobs to tweak background colors, fonts etc. I don't think the Remarkable is quite there yet.
- Reading, researching frequently means looking something up on the web as you go too. Again difficult to do on a remarkable.
The iPad can potentially be more distracting, but that can be solved by setting it up right IMO. I don't install any TV/Media/News/Games apps on it, turn off notifications for most apps and have a shortcut to limit the colors to black and white.
I made the same choice, but I am rethinking it. I run Linux on my desktop and would love to control my iPad from the desktop, using it as a second screen or a drawing pad. Apple makes this uncessarly hard.
I assume you're looked at Apple's Continuity[1] and Sidecar[2] features of macOS+iPad. They work more reliably if you use a cable to hook them together.
Duet display (the original app which Apple Sherlocked with Sidecar) supports Windows 10, but as far as I know, if you want to do this on Linux, you're out of luck.
Its also impossible on Remarkable or another ereader. I wish Apple products were less locked down too, but im not talking about usecases beyond an ereader here.
I recently got my RM2 and love it. I already own a 13" iPad Pro with the pencil, but for being a notebook, the RM2 easily beats the iPad. Yes, there is way better software on the iPad and you get all kind of fancy drawing tools. Where the RM2 beats the iPad is:
- it looks and feels like paper. No glowing screen, textured surface, it just feels like writing with a pen.
- the always-on display. I use the ReMarkable as my notebook while working and can have it in front of my all day long. You still can see the screen content when it goes to sleep after 20 minutes (sleep can be deactivated) and you can even have it preserve the content when it switches off after 3 hours. So you keep your notes in view. With the iPad, it turns itself off quickly and of course uses way more power.
- overall I think it has the better design for this purpose than the iPad, I have the book-like cover and love it.
- hackability. I need to learn more about that, but you can ssh into it and have a normal linux shell. Try that with an iPad :p. It seems to be very easy to cross compile Go programs for the ReMarkable.
To echo the others: it's very much a niche + enthusiast device still. Though not to as much of a degree as the rm1 at launch :)
If you're not excited about the very limited feature-set, or because it's hackable, I'd pretty strongly recommend looking elsewhere. Much more user-friendly devices exist at similar prices, but they're locked down / run android (so less battery life, various android benefits and issues) / not as thin.
You can still buy the ReMarkable 1 from their store (or online) for a substantial discount and the hacks available for it are more numerous than the 2.
They officially give you SSH access to the device, various GPL-ed source code running on it and have done so for the previous generation too. I'd trust them with it, and even if they were to go against it it's the kind of device where missing out on future firmware releases doesn't seem that bad.
What really matters is not how "open" the device is, but the open-ness of its data format, which is where rM epically fails.
It doesn't matter if a gadget is hackable if it locks you into a proprietary file format and doesn't have good interoperability. Exporting PDFs just doesn't cut it; the point of keeping your notes digital is being able to (a) maintain them as living documents and (b) use them on hardware of your choice.
Buying an Android-based device like Onyx Note Air gives you an option to use apps like Xournal/Xournal++ (best-in-class for handwritten notes, but unfortunately still in alpha on the mobile), or Stylus Labs' Write. This means that your notes are available, in their original form, on virtually any platform, in an open format. This is way, way more important than being able to root or ssh your gadget du jour.
Might be different for different people but I sure prefer a "open device using a proprietary file format" over "proprietary device using a open file format" as the former allows me to change everything regarding the device, even what file format it uses. So I can continue using the proprietary file format or change it to a open one with a different reader/writer, but same hardware.
"proprietary device using open file format" would make me be stuck with whatever format they decided to use, and stuck with the same reader/writer. This is less helpful to me than being able to change everything in the device.
I wish so badly that color e-ink was further along. I'd love a tablet that could replace my notebooks, but for some reason, needing a second screen to read my textbooks (color is nonnegotiable for diagram-heavy some textbooks, in my experience) makes me reticent. The ReMarkable 2 looks fantastic, and I love the idea of a distraction-free, dedicated writing/reading tablet, but $450 feels just a touch too far for a device that will require me to use a second device to read textbooks.
> I wish so badly that color e-ink was further along
It is coming: a waveshare 7 color eink screen is $600 on aliexpress, 16 second refresh
If partial refresh comes more supported in open source, pictures could be drawn immediately with the b&w text, then refresh little by little to add color.
16 second refresh is a complete nonstarter for a note taking device. Its only good enough for a desk calendar screen. I'm not sure how much more can be done since these color e paper displays are basically a hack which doesn't scale well and degrades refresh rates as contrast from the ones I have seen.
There are a few "color eink" displays floating around in demos which are actually just an lcd with a matte layer over the top.
Real color eink is a hack too. Its multiple colors with the same magnetic polarity but in different sizes and the display is able to pulse the fields to select the color but its super slow and the colors can blend together a bit. All of the ones I have seen are 3 color and I imagine more colors make the issue even worse.
Unfortunately, it's not a genuine eink display but a rebranding of Qi hybrid LCD that was made popular in the OLPC.
Just look at the announced resolution in dpi in b&w vs color, and you'll see they use a LCD mask in front.
If you want both color and eink, it's better to get a dual screen, like a Lenovo C930 book: use the screen clone mode and just turn off the color screen when you don't need it.
This can also gives you a eink laptop if you use a USB keyboard.
This an interesting option I never considered. Somehow, I wasn't aware of the C930 book. It looks like it's been discontinued, but there are still many being sold.
I've also toyed with the idea of purchasing an old Surface Pro 3 because of the price and the ability to run a full Linux distro—though obviously, I lose all the benefits of e-ink with this option.
I just looked at it. I feel like I would have much preferred they put the e-Ink on the back side of the LCD screen instead of replacing the keyboard. It's really hard to use a non-tactile keyboard for any productivity.
Yes, the same product with an eink screen on the back would be nice... but different. Personally, I like taking notes while reading a website, and this requires a dual screen. Lenovo has other laptops with eink on the bank, but I'm not familiar with the lineup.
For the keyboard, consider getting a USB or bluetooth keyboard, like Lenovo ThinkPad TrackPoint Keyboard II, or ThinkPad Compact USB Keyboard with TrackPoint (0B47190) - they are very comfortable.
it _is_ an e-paper / e-ink / electrophoretic display. E-ink went back to color filters because their filter-free color displays take tens of seconds to refresh and nobody was buying them.
Please do not support Onyx or buy any Boox tablets! I'm reproducing an earlier comment[0] below:
They're a lousy company that does not respect the GPL and ships intentionally insecure software (ancient linux kernel with SELinux disabled for starters) that phones home to Chinese servers. The bootloader is locked, so putting pmOS is out of the question and their update files are intentionally obfuscated.
This received some attention in the re--it community last month--the company still does not care [1]. It's a tragedy because their hardware is good, otherwise and they can compete on that.
In other news, I am now a happy owner of a ReMarkable 2 and the first day I was able to SSH in, set up rsync on my local network and customize the hosts file to disable their cloud services. We should not tolerate the inability to run software on computers that we own, especially for devices that are as trusted as notebooks and personal computers, which this tablet is.
I'm not sure if I should sell my Boox Note or relegate it to use as signage. The only problem is that if the battery dies, it refreshes the display to a "battery depleted" screen, instead of leaving up the last image. But you can't customize that because the bootloader is locked.
Edit: Another note about Onyx. At least my Note does not support proper C2C charging. In other words, you can't charge from a Type-C charger, you have to use a type-A charger. My rM2 works just fine with all of my C2C chargers.
I am really enjoying the ReMarkable 2. I wish the display were more "actual" paper size of course (it's 10.3" diagonal (no margins) rather than US Letter's more typical 13.8" diagonal (no margins), or even a moleskin's 11" diagonal (no margins))
That said, sketching/writing are just as good as they are on the iPad Pro or Surface Pro. The pen/glass "feel" is no worse than those other two solutions either (but no better either). Very low latency, easy page switching. The iPad's rapid zoom in / zoom out is helpful in sketchpad for drawing details which epaper clearly has challenges with. But In terms of taking notes or writing down things as I'm coding and need to get back to? It's super awesome.
I've also put PDFs of data sheets on it which are easy to read (if a bit shrunk). The PDF reader is functional, same with the EPub viewer, would like to have the click the page to turn pages that the kindle and other apps on touch screens do.
Syncing with the computer is pretty seamless.
I don't like that it clears the screen and puts "reMarkable is sleeping" on the screen when I've had it sitting open with a PDF. There may be an option to change that but I haven't found it yet.
All in all I'm glad I got it and I've been using it pretty much every other day or so.
I'm surprised that you say the pen/glass fell is no better than IPad Pro or Surface Pro, in my opinion this is a difference like day and night. I also own the Sony epaper DPT-1 and while that one has a good feel it's not close to the remarkable (mind you it also has a different aim, i.e. only note-taking no drawing). But in my opinion the writing feel blows anything with a regular LCD or OLED display completely out of the water. The texture gives it the closest to real paper anywhere. That said it is a very limited device, so if you don't need something for note-taking and reading I would not get it.
I also agree with one of the previous posters, I wish this would be A4/Letter size like the Sony. I read mainly pdf articles and the size is just sufficient.
It is completely locked down and really can only take notes and read PDFs. However there is a community who managed to unlock it and it's mainly an android system underneath if I recall correctly. For me it's largely a device where I do my reading for work so I haven't really bothered trying to unlock it.
And you can modify the png for sleeping. Any transparent pixels will show the screen contents. I changed mine to completely cover the entire screen when sleeping. (I use a passcode and don’t want people seeing the screen contents)
From the wiki (posted by Eeems):
"transparency, if present, is taken into account by the tablet (meaning that the former content remains visible where the PNG is transparent; this is used e.g. by sleeping.png in the 'light sleep' mode)."
I've thought about getting one of these. Even though I type about as fast as I write, I think better when I write in a notebook with drawings to organize my ideas.
Can anyone who has one tell me how accurate the handwriting recognition is? And how responsive is the pen-tablet interface? Does it actually feel like writing on paper (responsiveness-wise)?
I had band handwriting and spent some time with Write Now! which is a book teaching the Getty-Dubay italics method to adults. It helped quite a bit, but I’ve been meaning to revisit it and I think it would be great to pull PDFs into something like ReMarkable for practice.
Edit: looks like they have released an iPad app since I last tried it! I’ll also add that when I first did it I found doing the worksheets pretty relaxing as a wind down exercise, in the same way that mindlessly playing puzzle games on a phone would be, but with much more benefit.
I write small and highly connected (e.g. I often drag from one letter to the next, only lifting a bit), and I'm also impressed with the recognition. It's not perfect of course, and doesn't seem to have many smarts about context (... good and bad. I can write weird stuff easily, but it also turns "recognition" to "hecognition" like in that screenshot), but it's much better than I've been able to get out of other devices.
For me, at least some of it is that the pen is more pen-like ("hard" rather than with a tip that depresses), and the sampling rate is much higher than e.g. a Surface. I have a Surface device and I absolutely can't stand writing on it - I have to write huge and slowly and lift a couple mm, or it screws up all over the place. ipads are dramatically better, but they still sample slower AFAICT, and close many of my "e"s into "c"s and similar loss-of-detail.
Oh wow! I'm in a similar boat - type a million MPH but have to take care to avoid scribbling chickenscratch when I write. I preordered the rM2 (not yet shipped) but was pretty worried about how it would fare against the formidable foe of my illegible hieroglyphs. This side-by-side has given me hope. Thank you for sharing!
The handwriting is pretty good, but tied to a language you pick, which can be annoying if like me you write/think in some messy mix of French/English.
It results in the words from the language picked to be pretty well recognized, but the words from the 'other' language being mapped to similar words from the picked language quite a lot.
For exemple, me writing 'Quelle horreur !' is recognised well if I pick French, but as 'Quelle horror!' in english.
Interesting. How about if you're writing with some technical words (or using the names of projects or companies that are made-up words) that don't appear in dictionaries? Does it have a dictionary that you can add words to?
The dictionary is used as a heuristic I think, but if you write gibberish in it does not try to force it to a 'dictionary' word the way autocorrect can do.
Not sure if you can add stuff to the dictionary, I did not find anything similar yet
The handwriting recognition seems OK for print, but not great when I write in cursive. The pen-tablet interface is very responsive --- I'd really like to know how they managed to get the refresh so quick with an e-ink display, actually. Apart from the texture, it's just as quick as writing on paper: I can't detect any latency.
I have the reMarkable 1. I've found the device sufficient to replace paper entirely. Due to the eink technology, the responsiveness depends on how much visual update there is on the screen. When you're writing it's very responsive, but if moving a complex drawing it may be slower. The reMarkable 2 should be more responsive though, especially since it has two cores.
I've found it surprisingly accurate. But the main workflow is a little awkward. The handwriting conversion only seems available (unless I've missed something) when you want to share a document via email - the conversion to text happens before you send it. This seems to be the only way to convert handwriting - which is a little annoying.
Does anyone know if it's possible to use a ReMarkable tablet as an external laptop monitor?
In the summer I like to sit outside coding, but the sunlight outshines my laptops LCD display. So I'd like to use an eInk display as an external monitor. And I gather ReMarkable is the best bet because of their hackability.
For monitor you need high refresh rate. Dasung monitors are the only option right now. My only regret with dasung monitor is that I didn't buy is sooner. I can work long hours now without my eyes getting tired.
The refresh rate on e-ink is so low that coding on one would probably be excruciating. You should think of it as a replacement for paper, not a replacement for a monitor.
If your laptop isn't very bright, you're mostly out of luck. You can work in the shade, try polarized glasses, buy a brighter laptop, or find a portable monitor that is brighter than your built-in panel.
> If your laptop isn't very bright ... buy a brighter laptop ... and a portable monitor that is brighter
As someone who works with my laptop outside in the sun a lot, the trick is not to have a brighter laptop but to have one with a matte display instead of glossy, and use bright backgrounds for everything. Even when I'm in direct sunlight, matte display and light themes make me able to see my code without any squinting or troubles.
> The refresh rate on e-ink is so low that coding on one would probably be excruciating
If you've edited files in vim over a spotty SSH connection and wasn't phased too much by it, you could probably survive the e-ink refresh rate as well.
Probably. It seems the X1 Carbon (the laptop I have) has most editions with anti-glare screen though. Found this site that could be helpful for people looking for matte displays: https://www.productchart.com/laptops/sets/1
If you're looking to use an e-ink tablet as an external monitor, you should also consider the larger BOOX e-ink tablets. The BOOX Max (starting from the last gen) and the new Max Lumi offer HDMI input for external monitor use.
I suspect (based on similar issues years ago) that you could get it working on MacOS in either one of two ways:
1. Set a password for the setting “VNC viewers may control screen with password:” in the screen sharing settings. Most of the issue with standard VNC clients is that MacOS uses MacOS-specific login security, but setting a password opens it up to VNC-standard security
2. Install an alternate VNC server on the Mac. This bypasses all the MacOS security nonsense.
I don’t have personal experience, but for these types of low-level things, I start my research with `brew`. In this case it looks like https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/tiger-vnc is a contender.
I'd love it if the reMarkable team focused more on eReader functionality. Unfortunately nothing has really been pushed since the initial release of the first reMarkable. Less than 7GB usable storage hurts as well.
I'm hoping KoReader can salvage what the reMarkable team has ignored.
Isn't it already does? I am running KoReader on rM1 for eReader purposes. It works this way: I start by long press of the middle button on rM1. To switch back, I quit KoReader and it restarts built in UI utility.
It needs small service running in background. The only issue I've noticed is with battery life which seems the same even in a sleep mode. I am curious is that because of this small service that ignores sleep mode?
Is there a primer on how to use these repos? I don’t see anything high level that keeps the user from shooting themselves in the foot- especially with the reMarkable 2.
I preordered a ReMarkable 2 and after the very long wait started to question if it actually made sense...
I ordered an iPad mini and a 20 dollar Apple Pencil clone (which imo is better than the actual Apple Pencil with its USB C charge port)
That combined with a matte screen protector got me everything I wanted out of the Remarkable, without the wait, and with an incredibly fast computing device that can do far more.
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I get that traditionally Tablet vs eReader is largely down to the eInk and some some other factors like battery life, but I really think the math has silently changed
iPads have gotten so fast, yet the battery life has improved dramatically (in sleep mode I can forget about it for a week or two and find it still has enough charge left for a day of use. E readers can manage months, but these numbers are lightyears ahead of the early days where a day of standby was pretty good.
Software support is excellent with the pen. Max brightness is plenty for direct sunlight when using a matte screen protector, and it gives it the writing feel of a proper digital notebook.
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I think anyone considering one should take a look at the combination. I didn't cancel my order on the RM2 out of apathy honestly, but I would have taken the iPad if I realized how far they'd come.
> ... these numbers are lightyears ahead of the early days where a day of standby was pretty good.
That doesn't seem right.
I still use my original iPad (v1) for reading and note taking quite often, if not daily.
That lasts for 6-8 hours of reading without needing a recharge. If I don't feel like reading for days/weeks there's no chance the battery has gone flat, as it lasts weeks (at least) in idle mode.
Pretty sure the battery life has degraded significantly over time too, and is about 1/2 what it was when new.
I just got my reMarkable 2 pre-order a few weeks ago, and it has already embedded itself into my workflow. I've really enjoying it. I haven't gotten into hacking yet, but I also haven't really had too many moment where I wished I could change something. The only real complaint I've had so far is that the pdf converter didn't put all of the pencil marks on all of the pages (I don't have a printer)
I'm going to get my R2 soon. Does anyone know if it can open (read+write) basic Excel documents? I have a "Weekly Todo" XLS (it's just blank grids) that I always print for writing down notes in the grids, and by end of week, put those back to computer. Would be great if I can skip the print-transcribe loop.
Nope. It's best to think of the rM just as a slightly digital notebook instead of as a computer. It handles PDFs, EPUBs, and its own notebook format wonderfully, but that's it.
To add to the sibling comment, there are multiple background images you can use when taking notes on the rM. Apparently you can customize them (from my research - haven't received my rM2 yet TBH) so you could likely drop in a grid image to use as a background.
I bought a reMarkable 1 a few weeks ago, with plans to give it to a family member and buy the reMarkable 2 once it's generally available. The set with the marker and the polymer folio was USD 299. For the sake of comparison, just the 10.3 inch display plus the driving board on Waveshare is USD 234 plus shipping, and it's kind of a pain to deal with.
The reMarkable, OTOH, "just works", as well as an i.MX6 machine with an e-paper display can.
It's a Linux machine with a framebuffer, with the added difficulty that you have to explicitly tell the framebuffer to update itself, unless you put the driver on auto-update mode. For my application, explicitly refreshing the framebuffer works better, though.
Does the Remarkable (1 or 2) have any vector based drawing applications?
Asking because I've recently been getting into drawing with Grease Pencil in Blender (on a Wacom tablet).
Grease Pencil is vector based (mostly). Being able to adjust drawn strokes after making them, really helps people (like me) that can't draw perfect curves and straight lines freehand.
Is there any move to get a Kindle app on this? I suspect the market is not big enough for Amazon to care but maybe they'd be open to some partnership where someone else does the work?
I mean they ship readers on Android, iOS, Windows, MacOS, and Web so it's not like they care that you buy a Kindle.
A week ago I received Remarkable 2. One of the best device that lets me focus instead of getting distracted. Great tool for thinking, meeting notes, etc.
People hate when you type notes during 1:1, but love when you take handwritten notes and remember previous conversations.
Don't believe so. For the rm1 there's a full linux distro (parabola-rm). I'd be surprised if you couldn't use anki or something in that. May not be the cleanest solution, but it should work.
This is really great timing. I ordered mine a few months ago and am part of the "Batch 8" shipping. I just got the notification today that mine is about to ship.
I'm yet to figure out (haven't searched enough yet) how to export the files out of the device (i.e. convert from their format to PDF/SVG) without using the USB web interface though; when I do, my workflow will be complete.
> I'm yet to figure out (haven't searched enough yet) how to export the files out of the device (i.e. convert from their format to PDF/SVG) without using the USB web interface though; when I do, my workflow will be complete.
My software does that: reMarkable Connection Utility (RCU). Paid, but GPLv3+, and works over USB or WiFi. It has a custom renderer that exports bitmap PDFs very close to what the screen shows--reMarkable's PDF export looks like a photocopy because they rotoscope a bitmap (why? dunno).
Correct me if I'm wrong but the problem I have with script you linked is that it relies on the WebUI provided by the tablet.
This WebUI does not work unless the USB interface is connected or you give it an IP after each reboot [1]. I wish there were a simple way to push and retrieve files from the tablet without relying on too many hacks or too much patching that would reveal maintenance heavy over time. There is one script that might be the one but I haven't tested it yet [2].
And I am wary of the direction ReMarkable is going : "recurring revenue, with a focus on software functionality" [3], it might be in their best interest to shut down any hacking possibility in the future.
Funny how the company advertises for a simple experience that will let you focus on the essentials, but because the software is lacking many fundamental features, you spend more time hacking it than working with it.
Is the only thing stopping e-ink tablets/devices from becoming afforable because of the high rent/royalties for the patented e-ink technology?
I'm keen to use one because 1) i think over it's lifetime it will likely consume less energy than an LCD/OLED tablet, and 2) because it would be better for my eyes when i'm reading articles/research or books.
Eh? Are you talking about the RM2? Mine goes for a few weeks of occasional use without needing a charge. Is that what you’re seeing? It’s supposedly much, much better than RM1.
Oh I see, that makes more sense. I heard that RM1 was a great device, but with some v1 rough edges, and that a lot of that got smoothed out by RM2. And that jives with my experience, the RM2 feels very polished (some obvious feature improvements to be made especially in OCR and searchability, but the basic functionality works really well).
I really like it, don't get me wrong. It's just the e-ink led me (and maybe others) to suggest it would have herculean battery life when in fact it's about approximate to a conventinoal tablet.
I have been a bit disappointed as well, something like a couple of days to get to 50% battery. I do use it pretty heavily though, pretty much taking notes all day and reading an hour of two as well
> Great, it has expensive royalties and it betrays the user.
Your cell phone also sends out photons that can be spied on. Worse yet they're multicast so multiple parties can receive them at the same time.
Seriously though, this is an absurd concern, and I say that as someone who is very privacy minded if not actually paranoid.
I still don't trust that cell phones aren't sending back keywords picked up on the microphone, but I guarantee you that right now no one is listening to your digitizer's rf output, much less that the device itself is somehow "betraying the user" by exfiltrating anything over it.
Short range analog RF signal to detect where the pen is, not something containing digital information. Your toothbrush motor and charger probably has comparable level of RF radiation come out.
They do, but it should be noted that there have been reports of toothbrushes exfiltrating accelerometer data so toothbrushes are no longer a good example of an innocuous device.
Maybe letting health insurance companies know their client(s) aren't brushing their teeth "enough" (by some metric), thereby setting themselves up for increased dental costs?
Probably the same thing for people brushing their teeth too much?
I ordered on Apr 17, still waiting for my tablet to come. Two weeks ago I got a promise they are going to ship but there is no delivery yet. I am getting a little nervous about it.
(As someone who just recently got theirs) I wouldn't be super worries about a no-show. They've got a proven track record and they've already shipped a huge amount, so it's not like they don't have factories already making it.
It looks like they've just been hit particularly hard by the apocalypse, probably because of their relatively small batches, production wise
I received mine about 3 weeks ago. It was the same for me as you describe, got an email with "we are about to ship your device you will receive notification from DHL" or something similar. Then it took another 2 weeks or so, and I received a notification directly from DHL that my device will arrive in 4 or 5 days (I think it came even faster like 2-3 days). Anyway, I wouldn't be worried, it seems after that initial notification you are only notified once the tablet it's already on its way.
The remarkable is more open than usual and that's great. That being said, if your priorities are openness, you should look at Onyx or Likebook devices, they run android and you can root them. That alone is leagues above anything in the Remarkable.
They are cheaper with better screens and more powerful processors, too.
As a practical matter, for developing, a rooted Android device is going to be better for developing as everything's standard and easy to work with.
As for GPL compliance, that really only means anything for the kernel. For the rest of the software, they can easily be closed sourced and not provided. Not that they necessarily wouldn't be, but I'd still rather have an Android device with an unlocked bootloader and no kernel sources.
Yes, it can be disabled. At least on my rM1 I've managed to disable all cloud syncing. For me it's very strange idea to put any personal notes in some cloud.
The other thing to disable is sending some stats info to their server enabled by default to my surprise. It can be disabled with terminal through ssh and I did. Can't find though the article with detailed instructions.
Yes. AFAIUI (haven't received mine yet) it's not required in the first place. You could likely unlink your account from the device though, if you already signed up. You can even edit the hosts file on the device to just block connections.
You have to enable it explicitly. There are also several third party tools for offline syncing, and there is always the option to SSH into the device and do whatever you want.
Not locked at all[1]. The rM2 is not quite as known as the rM1, but it seems to still be just as open if you have the right hardware to tell it to get into recovery mode[2]
The hacking community is quite active, one frequently asked question is how to get and run custom software on the device.
There's the Entware[0] package repository for running ARMv7 software on the tablet. Recently a community maintained package repository, toltec[1] for tablet-specific software was created and is actively maintained.
For Nix users, I've been helping build a Nix-based cross-compile toolchain[2], so you could easily cross-compile a good amount of the 60K packages on Nixpkgs for the tablet. Upstreaming the cross toolchain to Nixpkgs is in the works.
To see what the community is up to, see the IRC channel[3], Reddit[4] and Discord server[5].
[0] https://github.com/evidlo/remarkable_entware
[1] https://github.com/toltec-dev/toltec
[2] https://github.com/siraben/nix-remarkable
[3] #reMarkable on Freenode
[4] https://reddit.com/r/RemarkableTablet/
[5] https://discord.gg/JSSGnFY