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Comment by thegrey_one | Hacker News Reader

I took an even simpler route. After jailbreak and ssh I just made two scripts on the Kindle, one is triggered every minute, the other every half hour. Both draw the same image from the same location, the 30 minute one just adds a full refresh. This way the display is not fully refreshed every minute, but in time image is degrading so full refresh once every 30 minutes seems work out fine.

This way Kindle has a very simple job, no apps installed no anything, just two extra cronjobs to run the oneliner bash scripts that draw the image. And I use rsync from a raspberry pi to push a new image every minute. That image is assembled with a python script, rpi side, with air quality data. Connects to local mysql server, pulls the values and then assembles it.

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> even simpler route ... rsync from a raspberry pi ... python script ... air quality data ... local mysql server

I smiled

it's simple if the other stuff is already in place

Ok fair enough but considering the Kindle ecosystem I'd rather deal with raspberry pi than with the Kindle stuff.

A pretty dumb eInk display that could do one thing, that is, receive and blit a bitmap at a given location, would suffice for great many uses. It only needs a way to connect to wifi or zigbee securely, e.g. using TLS.

This is sort of related to a revelation I had once I got into Home Assistant.

The usual idea is a that a smart home becomes filled with smart devices and yet what worked really well for me was having dumb devices with a very smart brain in the middle.

Buttons, switches, lamps, and sensors are commodify Zigbee devices and the entirety of the logic and programming is done on the Home Assistant server. The downside is latency.

Usually you can bind ZigBee devices together. I have multiple IKEA "rodret" switches bound to generic ZigBee smart plugs from Aliexpress. Works great, with minimal latency.

With zha, you can bind them together from the Home Assistant device page.

I usually favor an architecture that can work without Home Assistant, such as standalone ZigBee dimmers, or contactors that can work with existing wiring. Home Assistant brings automation on top, but it doesn't matter much if it breaks (I mostly notice the shutters not opening with sunrise). Then Internet connectivity can bring additional features, but most things still work if it's down.

I'd say it has been pretty solid for years, and I don't stress too much when I have server issues.

Such devices exist are are expensive, more so than e-readers.

I took an even simpler route.

I Jailbroke my Kindle so I can read epubs on the bus and I just ask Siri when the next bus is comming.

There's something very satisfying about solving the whole problem with a couple of scripts instead of building a full framework around it

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