A developer has jailbroken anAmazonKindle eReader tablet and repurposed it as a portable E Ink monitor. Twitter/X userAdhityaafelt compelled to undertake this project after a laptop screen cataclysm this weekend. Instead of throwing the offending clamshell computer in the trash, Adhityaa says they “did the obvious thing and jailbroke my Kindle to use it as a monitor.”
E Ink monitors are notoriously pricey, so being able to repurpose an affordable Amazon Kindle Paperwhite as a portable model would appear to be a winning (life) hack. Thankfully, for those who may feel like following in their footsteps, Adhityaa shared some details and links related to the Kindle-as-a-monitor hackon GitHub.
You can head on over to that link for the full details, but here is a summary of the steps that need to be followed to create your own E Ink monitor on the cheap:
Adhityaa admits that sending display updates from their Mac to Kindle this way leaves much room for improvement. Its ability to run at around 3 to 4 FPS is quite remarkable. However, they reckon it would be “pretty easy” to optimize a few parts of the image piping process to hit 10 FPS or so.
E Ink monitors aren’t famous for fast performance, so a 10 FPS external display for second-screen monitoring of some stats, details, or feeds might be unsuitable. However, if someone refined and productized a solution like this, it could, therefore, earn a dedicated following.
In related news, we recently reported on theDasung Paperlike color portable e-ink monitor, which arrived on the U.S. market. This device may offer a premium build, color visuals, and a larger 12-inch diagonal. However, its $849 ticket price puts it out of reach of an impulse purchase.
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Mark Tyson is a news editor at Tom’s Hardware. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.
