Revive Your Old E-Ink Tablet For Timetable Helper Duty

[ad_1]

In our drawers, there is gonna be really a number of aged products that we have neglected about, and potentially we should to make them do the job for us as a substitute. [Jonatron] located a Nook Easy Contact in his drawer – with its E-ink monitor, wi-fi connectivity and a workable Android model, this e-reader from 2011 has the guts for usually-on screen responsibility. Regrettably, the smooth touch covering on the back again disintegrated into a sticky mess, as tender touch does, the LiIon battery has gone flat, and the software support’s lackluster. Both of these are likely to come about for a great deal of tablets, which is why we’re pleased [Jonatron] has shared his story about this e-reader’s revival.

The tablet in question with back cover removed, battery wires connected to a USB cable for powerThe delicate contact layer on the again didn’t go away with enable of alcohol, but by sheer luck, an acetone bottle was close by, and an acetone scrub assisted get rid of the unpleasant stickiness. The tablet’s charging circuitry turned out to be unsophisticated – the pill would not boot from MicroUSB enter, and [Jonathan] wired up 5 volts from a USB cable straight into the battery input. Head you, this might not be suggested, as Lithium-Ion battery assortment is from 3 volts to 4.2 volts and a regulator would be called for, but [Jonatron] says it’s been performing just good.

Usually, you could just place a webserver on your community network and serve a website page with handy details, including code to refresh the webpage periodically – but the Nook’s browser didn’t aid automatic refreshes. Not to be stopped, [Jonatron] wrote an application for the Nook’s Android put in as an alternative rooting was expected but went seamlessly. The Android set up is old, and Android Studio for it is no for a longer time downloadable, so he utilized an older enhancement toolkit in some way still obtainable on the web. There is however a small Python-created webserver working on a spare Pi, conditioning the info for the application to fetch. Next finest hacker traditions, both equally the application and the server are open-sourced! With help of a 3D printed stand, this tablet now displays coach departure schedules – great application for an previous e-reader like this.

Got a Nook Straightforward Touch in a drawer? Now you know you can quickly convert it into a hackable E-ink screen! We’ve viewed several tablet restorations just before, replacing charger ICs and eMMC drives, turning them into videophones to chat with our family and intelligent property controllers, and there’s even mend databases to assist you in your revival attempts. We have been finding fairly a number of jobs like these in our very last Hackaday Prize installment, Hack It Back, and we hope to see extra this kind of rebuilds for our Wildcard spherical!

[ad_2]

Supply connection