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Comment by Tharkun | Hacker News Reader

I've stopped using mine. It's gathering dust in a corner somewhere. The hardware is pretty decent, and the writing experience is good. The software, on the other hand, is not good. There have been a couple of updates since I bought it, but they've been few and far between. Everything about it is mediocre. The file manager, meh. The note taking app, meh. The sync, meh. Getting stuff on it automatically is all but impossible. And I haven't been able to read some DRM books on it.

It's too expensive to use as just a notepad, but it's not good enough to use for anything else.

Additionally: the writing experience on the ipad pro is at least as good, and with just a bit less lag.

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My experience has been quite different. I've found the software updates to be great and fix a lot of the issues I had with the device. As far as getting things on the device, my primary use case is reading academic papers, so I wrote a script that uploads documents from a Zotero folder.

https://michael.mior.ca/blog/zotero-remarkable-sync/

I love mine, even though I can't use it at work due to having a very secretive employer.

It's essentially an electronic notebook with zero distractions, which IMO is the whole point. The iPad pro has a browser, Facebook, Twitter, email, messenger, hacker news, Instagram, and a million other ways to get distracted. Even if I don't use them, you still get the temptation to use those, and it's pretty distracting.

When I take the reMarkable to write on it, my brain seems to switch gears to thinking mode. It's similar to the way that having a home office puts you in working mode when you enter it, even though you could technically work from the couch with your laptop.

The software could definitely be improved, especially the cloud stuff (can't even revoke anything connected to the rM cloud from the web UI), but as a thinking device it works great for me.

You could get quite a few notebooks and pens for the price of the device, but they don't have an undo button. Whether you prefer the finality of ink on paper (with colors!) or the ability to erase and redo strokes is up to you. I carry both in my bag, ymmv.

When I need to use mine with confidential work documents, I just put it into airplane mode and upload documents to it over USB. I confirmed (a few software versions back) that deleting while in offline mode resulted in a full delete, and that nothing was synced after coming back online.

I’d really really like a means to maintain a direct-sync-only folder, or some sort of robust encryption story, but to date, the team has said that corporate compliance use cases aren’t a priority for them. I see that some of the team is participating here; perhaps we can all convince them to prioritize some sort of solution?

If they had done this I would have already bought one. I won't until they do. I regard my reading and note taking as private and I don't want them processed off device.

You can simply not connect it to a Wi-Fi network. It supports transferring files over USB according to the documentation [0], though I haven't really tried that.

Their FAQ also mentions that you can use the device without their cloud service [1]. I believe the handwriting recognition (which isn't really that useful IMO) requires to be online.

[0] https://support.remarkable.com/hc/en-us/articles/11500570038... [1] https://support.remarkable.com/hc/en-us/articles/11500373686...

If you don't want the company to access any of your notes, just don't enable the cloud features, don't even create a cloud account. Then you can sync between your other devices and the RM with some scripts making use of SSH for instance - it's not a very convenient solution but definitely works.

The terrible USB file transfer mode is one of the reasons why I stopped using it. Last time I tried I had to use a web browser to drag files to some web page. No idea why they didn't implement a mass storage API the way any other device does. Has that changed in recent versions?

Doesn't look like it, but you could use curl to upload files to it, if you wanted to to it from the command line: https://remarkablewiki.com/tech/webinterface#accessing_files...

It might also be possible to copy files with scp/ssh.

Both are possible.

> deleting while in offline mode resulted in a full delete

Overwritten with random data and unlinked, or just unlinked? I would assume the latter...?

I’d guess just unlinked, but that’s a pretty uneducated guess. My concerns were regarding the data escaping the device to their cloud, not remaining on-device in case of physical attack.

> I’d really really like a means to maintain a direct-sync-only folder, or some sort of robust encryption story, but to date, the team has said that corporate compliance use cases aren’t a priority for them. I see that some of the team is participating here; perhaps we can all convince them to prioritize some sort of solution?

That would be really awesome. The development team is pretty small, and I'm pretty sure it's low on their list of priorities, but if they had encryption at rest and LDAP/Okta authentication, I'd definitely get another one for work.

I second that and hope somebody from remarkable reads it. They could make this device great from being meh with a software update. I want to make notes on remarkable and easily edit them on android. Export SVGs not just low quality jpegs. Make integration with evernote and other note apps. Implement todoist API or let developers make their own simple apps. Provide written text OCR, it's usable at this point. There is much potential. I really enjoy writing and drawing on it, even though the plastic things that you write with need to be replace quite often when it's used for drawing. I can pay for the experience just make it worthwhile.

Also, why do you have to "turn the screen off" when I'm not using it. Just let the current note be displayed.

Any interest in selling it? I’ve been curious about trying one, and I’ve also been trying to get better at reusing things, rather than buying new ones outright, so one with a sufficient layer of dust seems perfect.

I had the same experience, unfortunately - although I recognized early and returned it a few weeks after getting it. At the time the software was bad across the board: on device and off. But the clincher for me was the price of the device was as much as you'd spend on an iPad and it had no backlight. I'd go back to considering ReMarkable on next generation if they've learned from gen 1. My use case was 50% book reading and 50% note/idea pad. I didn't feel it excelled at either of those. And while I don't enjoy reading on a tablet the writing experience on the iPad with a tactile screen cover is actually very good. I realize many would disagree there and I'd agree with that without the screen cover. I hope ReMarkable keeps going though. In the end it seems like they've left the platform open enough compared to the locked down ecosystems. I refuse to buy any Amazon branded eReader because of how limited in use they are without the Bezos ecosystem.

Lack of backlight was a disappointing surprise for me. Seems like such an obvious feature, I spent 20 minutes trying to figure out how to turn it on. Then found on their website there's no backlight b/c they want to maintain a true paper-like experience. :unamused:

To each their own, I've found with my ereader that backlight (or are they frontlights?) are pointless. During the day, I always use no backlight and I find it easier on the eyes just to turn a lamp on at night.

Turning on a lamp at night is great when your SO goes to bed later, or doesn't mind light when going to sleep.

Oh I love the iPad Pro. I'm betting my dollars on books coming on to web straight up—like websites—and there are startups working on this already with an "iPad first" approach to experience of reading books online. I am loving this churn! :-)

That sounds absolutely horrible. The whole point of a book is it's finality. I don't want to have to pull a book as a site down every time I want to read a book. It sounds like this model is focused on some sort of DRM approach that has little to no usefulness for people who want to read a book.

Do you mean you don’t want to scroll to consume content or do you mean that you don’t like to download content on demand? Or both? And, no I don’t like "rights management" of the user, so fuck DRM fwiw.

Have you seen Bubblin (https://bubblin.io) on the iPad? (Disc. I am one of the developers behind it.)

Sadly, books are already DRM'ed either by being on dead-tree or by being behind proprietary tech like that of Kindle.

Both are bad for books. Web is a ray of hope, IMO.

I don't like the idea all around. I looked at the site you referenced and it brings me no advantage over how I read books today. I honestly don't think an HTML variant of books are what people are after. What I want, as a consumer, is an identical workflow to how I buy paper books and I want as close to a paper reading experience when I choose to buy an electronic book. It looks like you've positioned yourself to be a walled garden publishing platform. I want to be able to download my books. The formats that exist today do a good enough job to read on devices. My Sony eReader from 2011 works still. I got a great ROI out of that device as I've read hundreds of books on it. I don't want books as a service.

And no, not all outlets are DRM'ed. I'll say it again: how you're doing books brings no advantages and, some additional disadvantages. No thanks.

> What I want, as a consumer, is an identical workflow to how I buy paper books

You mean like video cassettes? No. That's not how web works—and there's no need for longform to hang-on to workflows of the past.

I cannot believe that you just defended Sony as someone for 'not building a walled garden' in your response above. Their eReader died for exactly for same reasons you're using against the web. Either you have no idea about what you're talking here or don't understand how web works generally.

Whoa there grasshopper.

No, I didn't say anything about video cassettes. You did. Video cassettes died because of technology improvements. Last I checked the traditional paperback still exists and sells well.

I did defend Sony. For building a product that I still use and can load up with books and PDFs from today. You should also be aware Sony still sells the same line they did when they started in the space. Their readers are designed for a slightly different market now, but they still sell - and at a premium. Being someone in the "disrupt the ebook market" I would have thought you'd be in the know for your competition.

Regardless I know what I want. And that's part of your problem in your response:

> Either you have no idea about what you're talking here or don't understand how web works generally.

With that brazen arrogance your company will likely struggle. I've been in the technology industry for over 20 years and have seen plenty of your types come and go. Best of luck!

And what about those who can’t/do not have the privilege to buy that premium Sony eReader? It’s never in your interest for any upstart to die.

As to my project, it’s built on 100% democratic open source tech. Pretty lame that I have to tell you this despite having linked to the website earlier.

Good luck to you too, adios!

> As to my project, it’s built on 100% democratic open source tech. Pretty lame that I have to tell you this despite having linked to the website earlier.

What does that even mean - "100% democratic open source tech"? Does that mean you built your business on other people and organization's contributions to OSS and that's somehow democratic? Because the open source bits you have out there (Bookiza) seem to be generally geared towards tooling for your for-profit publishing company (Bubblin). To me it seems kind of like what Sony does, for lack of a better analogy.

I am glad you asked.

1. Which open source project do you think isn’t geared (willingly or unwillingly) towards the benefit of a for-profit company?

Or wait.

2. Do you think being registered as a non-profit makes an entity benign?

These questions are (have been) to me as much as they are to you—and it’s also time to sleep. GN.

It's too expensive to use as just a notepad, but it's not good enough to use for anything else.

But you've already paid for it? It's more expensive as a dust holder, right? So why not use it as a notepad?

I'll take it off your hands if you want. Email me at gmail.

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