Life Dashboard
Low power, heads up display for every day life running on a Kindle.
Details
Second hand Kindles are waiting in drawers for someone to repurpose them into something great. Boasting large e-ink screens, wifi connectivity and ARM processors they are an amazing hacking platform.
In my case I created an information panel summarizing my day such as my calendar, surf and weather forecast, garbage schedule, school closures, etc. The extra space is filled by a random pokemon sprite.
The project uses a serverless backend to collate data from external services and on the Kindle itself Rust code (cross compiled via docker) fetches and typesets the data into an image.
I built a stand rather then a more standard frame because the e-reader functionality of the Kindle is still present and can be used without modification. I also thought it was important to avoid obscuring the original device and celebrate its reuse.
More details can be found on my blog.
Setup
USB
transfer pokemon folder to Kindle mounted as USB drive.
Jailbreak and Setup SSH
See (https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Kindle4NTHacking) and if bricked then use Kubrick in VM to restore.
SSH over wifi
Hold power button till light flashes, then press power button a few times to restart back to normal e-reader mode. SSH server will be running and wifi will auto connect.
SSH Over USB
network settings, find RNDIS, change from DHCP to manual and ip: 192.168.15.201.
# set ip of computers usb port
ifconfig # search for device with 192.168.15.201
sudo ifconfig en5 192.168.15.201
ssh [email protected]
/usr/sbin/mntroot rw
mv /mnt/base-us/pokemon/ /
Install
Setup Wifi on Kindle and then run install.sh with Kindle connected via USB or wifi.
Cross Compiling to Kindle (ARM-7 Soft Float)
We need a statically compiled binary to run in the Kindle. There are many ways to do this but on OSX I use docker(via https://github.com/messense/rust-musl-cross) to avoid polluting my system with all the required bits and having to compile each requirement separately.
docker pull messense/rust-musl-cross:armv7-musleabi && \
alias rust-musl-builder='docker run --rm -it -v "$(pwd)":/home/rust/src messense/rust-musl-cross:armv7-musleabi'
rust-musl-builder cargo build --release
Cross
Cross doesn't support soft float for arm 7 yet.
cross build --target armv7-unknown-linux-musleabihf
Copy books to Kindle vis SCP
scp book.mobi [email protected]:/mnt/base-us/documents/
dbus-send --system /default com.lab126.powerd.resuming int32:1
Frame
3D printed using wood filled filliment - https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2536906
Notes
The mobileread forumn is the place for mobile reader hacking.
I could have avoided the backend of this project and only used the Kindle but I had already created it for another project and saved time to reuse it.