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mengchengfeng

127 karma · joined December 4, 2025

https://www.mariannefeng.com/
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mengchengfeng··on Hacking an old Kindle to display bus arrival times
Hahaha 100%. No 3D Printer and I wanted to be able to easily remove it from its "mount" for charging.

It teeters a fine line between jank and minimalism.

mengchengfeng··on Hacking an old Kindle to display bus arrival times
Oh your mini screen is so cuuuute! Hey whatever works
mengchengfeng··on Hacking an old Kindle to display bus arrival times
Seems like it should work. Another commenter said that for their dash, they had a site that they kept open in the Kindle browser.

Although I did notice some weirdness with using the browser. I have an HTML endpoint up at https://kindle.mariannefeng.com/, and for some reason whenever I tried to go to that page using the Kindle browser, it returned a message about not being able to load the page. And I don't even think my page has javascript.

mengchengfeng··on Hacking an old Kindle to display bus arrival times
If you've got an old Kindle, this project is totally doable over a weekend! Especially if you start with only weather data to begin with.
mengchengfeng··on Hacking an old Kindle to display bus arrival times
Hah I love the random Pokemon + remaining time for Laundry + Dishwasher! I'm not usually a big fan of smart appliances but boy oh boy would it be cool to display remaining time left for laundry on a dashboard...
mengchengfeng··on Hacking an old Kindle to display bus arrival times
Woww written in Rust, nice! Very cool, first time I've been tempted to learn Rust.
mengchengfeng··on Hacking an old Kindle to display bus arrival times
Hahaha I love this comment!
mengchengfeng··on Hacking an old Kindle to display bus arrival times
I don't believe you need internet connection - IRRC jailbreaking steps were plug in the Kindle, drop the jailbreak folder into the root directory, then choose `Update` from the Settings screen.

The hardest part was finding the `Update` menu item. It's only visible if you go to Settings, then press the menu button again while on the Settings page.

Not sure if registering the Kindle was required.

mengchengfeng··on Hacking an old Kindle to display bus arrival times
Awesome tips. I'll try increasing the refresh interval to 2 minutes and turning off the wifi in between refreshes to see if helps with battery life.

Side note this also finally explains to me why battery life on the Kindle is SO good in airplane mode.

mengchengfeng··on Hacking an old Kindle to display bus arrival times
Also fair - bricking it was definitely one of my main concerns.

After going through this process though, I'd say as long as somebody has basic linux knowledge, chances of bricking are pretty low.

mengchengfeng··on Hacking an old Kindle to display bus arrival times
It's easier to load up a page in the Kindle browser, but more fun to jailbreak :D

I also didn't want the browser bar at the top.

mengchengfeng··on Hacking an old Kindle to display bus arrival times
Right now I'm doing a partial refresh, and it manages to last for a couple days but would be cool if it could be unplugged for 2 weeks.

A small solar battery is a VERY interesting idea. If I don't end up being able to hit that number by adjusting the code itself, will look into it.

mengchengfeng··on Hacking an old Kindle to display bus arrival times
Yeah that was definitely a worry of mine before I booted it up. Luckily it's still got decent battery life. We'll see how it holds up in 6 months...

Dyson vacuums and Kindles are not the same whatsoever, but I wonder how easily it'd be to swap out the battery on an older Kindle. For our vacuum, all I needed was a 20 dollar replacement battery and the will unscrew 3 mini screws.

mengchengfeng··on Hacking an old Kindle to display bus arrival times
I love it! Always fun to see the route somebody else took to get to the same end product.

Your post is making me want to try more Cloudflare Developer Platform stuff like Cloudflare Workers.

mengchengfeng··on Hacking an old Kindle to display bus arrival times
Good to know about Kindle Fire. And hah, I can totally see why you'd prefer LCD's over e-ink - no ghosting + readable in pitch dark would be a sweet upgrade to the dashboard.
mengchengfeng··on Hacking an old Kindle to display bus arrival times
Woah this is really cool! Makes me want to create a custom mount