Hacking on the reMarkable 2
71 points by steinuil
71 points by steinuil
Man I'd love to have a non-hacky way of writing and deploying things on reMarkable (Pro/Pro Move in my case). But it's really in some kind of pre-alpha stage, where you need 6 (potentially bricking) steps to install koreader. Good luck with your quest, and it's a shame I don't have resources to do mine.
papers are kind of annoying to read because you have to zoom in just a little to read comfortably
Are there any eInk devices lobsters would recommend for reading academic papers?
KOReader can run on the reMarkable (it has the same issue as all the other apps and requires rm2fb) and from what I've seen it can autocrop PDF margins, which would make it just about perfect for reading papers. I haven't taken measurements but I think it'd be just short of 1:1.
Thx, I've heard good things about KOReader even before. Seems it can run on jailbroken Kindle and Kobo devices, too. Now I just have to figure out which of the many revisions and sizes are good enough for multi-MB A4 papers...
FWIW, probably you already know this, KOReader runs just fine on a desktop which is good to get a feel on the experience you'll get on an eink device.
also you can’t write over files using koreader AFAIK — which is one of the greatest flows in remarkable (imagine writing fingerings over music or comments over scientific article)
Semi-related: has anyone here used on of those A4-sized readers? Cropping the page so it's readable isn't very useful, that's where my notes live, and hiding my notes behind clickable gizmos or text decoration kind of defeats the whole purpose of scribbling notes in the first place. Things like Boox or the Fujitsu Quaderno look pretty cool but I haven't seen any of them in a showroom yet and I'm not sure I want to spend that kind of money on something that'll just end up as a replacement for my old Kobo.
I use the PineNote, which I enjoy and you might as well if you have high tolerance for Linux faffing. In portrait mode the papers become zoomed in enough that reading them is quite nice. I like my fonts to be even larger than they would be on paper.
as much as it pains me to mention a backlit device, probably the 12.9" iPad Air/Pro (used is fine).
Thx for the suggestion. As I already spend what feels like 90% of my wake time in front of a backlit device, I'd prefer eInk. In the past I used to print out papers and annotate them with a pen, but this doesn't scale well.
I have an Onyx Tab X and it's great! I use it to read academic papers, books, and for note-taking.
I have this problem on the RM2. The newer RM, the colour one, is an inch bigger. That would make quite a bit of difference I think.
we have a concert coming up during which we won't be allowed to use regular tablets due to the backlighting
This sounds crazy! I actually considered to use a reMarkable tablet for the same purpose a while ago (I had the opportunity to get one for cheap), but at the gigs I do nowadays, we are often under powerful lights that flood your face much more than your papers, so backlighting is actually desirable and will be completely overpowered by stage lights in anyway. Before the tablet era I think I’ve even done a few concerts with those little music stand lights on flexible goosenecks… But I get the point, for “traditional” gigs without stage lights I guess.
I’d really like to learn more about your experience of using e-paper for sheet music, once you’ve got it working.
Before the tablet era I think I’ve even done a few concerts with those little music stand lights on flexible goosenecks…
That's the plan for this concert. We're gonna be in the dark in some parts and we'll be "spatialized" around the public for others so I think having a blueish light shining on your face from a traditional tablet would ruin the effect.
I’d really like to learn more about your experience of using e-paper for sheet music, once you’ve got it working.
Will do! I think for this concert I might just use the stock reMarkable software but I hope I'm gonna have enough time to get something working during the holidays.
If I may be that annoying person, your music performance is going to be much better if you know the pieces by heart and don't have to read sheet music. I mostly play blues, rock and pop so it's easy for me to say that, for jazz and classical music it's probably harder to learn everything by heart. :o)
I agree and especially if it's an "important" performance you're gonna have a better time if you don't have to look at the score, but when you're on the second verse of some polish renaissance piece (assuming you don't speak polish) and you don't remember if the fifth line starts with Którzy or Raczyż you're gonna want to take a look :)
Exactly, and even with “simple” blues, rock and pop songs, normal humans like me have a limited memory!
Sheet music is critical for rehearsals in larger ensembles, since you usually use numbered measures for orientation. And if you have the sheet music in front of you for every rehearsal, it's just an unnecessary risk to take that away for the performance, even if you know the piece by heart.
Additionally, memory is fuzzy, but you want everyone playing the same part to play exactly the same. This is different for soloists, who have a lot more freedom in interpretation.
I wish the RM2 was more hackable; I love the hardware, but don't have a good use case for what their software is actually good for. I should try out other e-ink computers, I guess.
Great article! I got a remarkable 2 recently and I really like it, but I would love to be able to sideload things more easily - I gave up after discovering the version constraints for Toltec. Looking forward to the next post :)
I like to use my reMarkable for reading sheet music at home where I'm fine with pausing for page turns. Since the reMarkable 2 unfortunately does not support Bluetooth, there is no way to use foot pedals as input devices for page turns, so I gave up on the idea of using it in orchestra.
In theory, you could connect a bluetooth dongle to the USB pogo pins on the side of the device. I haven't seen anyone make viable attachments that way (other than the official Type Folio), though.
There is one project on GitHub detailing how to build a foot pedal that connects to the USB-C port which I think should work on the current OS build, since the last commit was last year. I'm disappointed about the lack of bluetooth as well, I was very surprised when I didn't find it in the settings.