[HN Gopher] I turned my Kindle into my own personal newspaper
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I turned my Kindle into my own personal newspaper
Author : rpgbr
Score : 173 points
Date : 2026-03-27 12:36 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (manualdousuario.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (manualdousuario.net)
| Foskya wrote:
| I would suggest to just jailbreak the kindle and automate the
| workflow with koreader or other "apps"
| DavideNL wrote:
| What i did is, jailbreak [1] my Kindle Oasis, and install
| KOreader [2].
|
| This gives you full access to upload whatever ebook you want
| (SSH, WebDav, Syncthing, ...) and it can fetch RSS feeds (i use
| it with FreshRSS.)
|
| PS. The (very old) Kindle Oasis is still the best device there is
| to read on in my opion. Which is crazy, since it was released
| from 2016-2019...
|
| It has 2 phyisical buttons to turn the page, and an ambient light
| sensor to auto adjust the brightness, and a 300 PPI display.
|
| I'm still "waiting" for a better / equal device to be released.
|
| [1] https://kindlemodding.org/kindle-models.html
|
| [2] https://github.com/koreader/koreader
| cyberpunk wrote:
| I missed my oasis dearly but I couldn't wait anymore and got a
| Kobo Libre (not sure the exact model, th color one); it's
| pretty much as good, only thing i miss is the dual battery
| system.
|
| Koreader is well supported and has all the features you
| mention.
| a10c wrote:
| Not only that but KOReader has native support for OPDS feeds,
| which the OPs read-it-later service Readeck also natively
| supports.
|
| I have been using it like this for a while and it is absolutely
| bliss to be able to view a catalogue of my inboxed articles on
| my kindle, with annotation (exports of which are also supported
| in KOReader).
| yoz-y wrote:
| TIL that oasis was discontinued. Now I'm sad I did not upgrade
| to the version with usb-c. I'll hold onto mine for a while.
|
| That said, I do most of my reading on a Books Palma 2 now.
| Smaller, so it fits better in a smaller bag or a pocket. And
| does have physical buttons.
| DavideNL wrote:
| fyi: https://blog.the-ebook-reader.com/2026/02/20/amazon-
| selling-...
| michaelmcdonald wrote:
| No need to be sad: the Oasis never had a USB-C version.
| deng wrote:
| Or, even better, don't buy a Kindle in the first place but get
| something that doesn't need a jailbreak, like for instance
| literally any Kobo reader.
| not_that_d wrote:
| But why? You can get a Kindle with ads, jailbreak it and
| having Bezos pay the halb of your Device
| prmoustache wrote:
| In any case you are always the only one to pay they just
| reduce their margin with the ad flavored version.
| Larrikin wrote:
| Because you still paid Bezos and then have a bunch of extra
| work to do to not make it a strictly interior to a Kobo.
| Tailscale+Koreader+Kavita on my Kobo Libra Color gives me
| access to my entire library at all times from anywhere. I
| read a lot more now after getting one.
| deng wrote:
| Not all Kindles can be jailbroken. It's a constant cat and
| mouse game, and if you get a Kindle with up-to-date
| firmware, there's a good chance you cannot jailbreak it for
| now. Once jailbroken, you need to make sure it doesn't
| auto-update the firmware. And personally, I think one
| should rather support open devices. Even if Amazon loses
| money on a jailbroken Kindle (which I doubt), in the end,
| it still hurts open alternatives.
| jcul wrote:
| +1 for Kobo.
|
| I've had my Kobo Clara HD for almost 8 years and I still use
| it daily with KOReader. It's so easy to install KOReader and
| it's really repairable. I replaced the SD card at one point,
| and another time I thought it was broken or needed a new
| battery but came back to life after reseating cables.
|
| Before that I had a kindle and you had to jump through a lot
| of hoops to install KOreader, and I remember you had to be
| careful not to upgrade the firmware so it could be
| jailbroken.
|
| Like I said I've had the Kobo for 8 years, so I hope this is
| still the case.
| themadturk wrote:
| KOReader works just as easily, and just as well, on my much
| newer Kobo Clara BW. I'm not unhappy with the built-in
| reader software, but keep KOReader installed just in case I
| want or need it.
| scrollop wrote:
| Had a few kobos, very good readers, then bought a Box color
| go 7 ii, mainly because it runs android, so you can used it
| for so many things. Shame the company is based in china.
| yulker wrote:
| what's the take on it being a shame that it's based in
| china?
| takipsizad wrote:
| being able to not care about GPL compliance, that's about
| it for me
| johnhamlin wrote:
| It's infuriating that Amazon abandoned the Oasis form factor. I
| love having a safe area on the side to, ya know, hold the damn
| thing. And physical buttons are so much more reliable for page
| turns. Every once in a while, tapping the screen to turn the
| page does something unexpected, and suddenly I'm futzing with
| my kindle instead of being immersed in my book.
|
| I was a happy Oasis user until last year when I used a new
| Kindle and saw how much faster they've gotten. That started a
| very frustrating search for a kindle replacement. I ordered and
| returned many units before settling on the Kobo Libra Color. I
| didn't want color, but I don't notice the lower resolution now
| unless I'm using it side-by-side with a B&W screen. I do miss
| whisper sync, which I'd occasionally use to read a few pages on
| my phone. The Instapaper integration is awesome-- I used to pay
| for KTool to accomplish something similar.
| bstar77 wrote:
| I have a Kindle Scribe Colorsoft. I've been able to upload
| pretty much any relevant media, primarily epub, pdf and images.
| I just use send to kindle via web or email. It's not censoring
| or rejecting content. Not sure what benefit jailbreaking would
| have.
| nonninz wrote:
| It would be really interesting to join what you and the OG
| article talks about:
|
| 1. Self host readdeck, add articles to it
|
| 2. Have an ebook generated automatically each article
| saved/day/week/etc
|
| 3. Have the ebook be automatically pushed to your jailbroken
| kindle with KOReader
|
| New side project unlocked, thanks!
| avazhi wrote:
| Uh, pretty sure the kindle paperwhites can import epubs natively
| now.
| cvcount wrote:
| The devices themselves can't read epubs (last time I checked
| anyway), but the "Send to Kindle" service will convert epubs to
| Kindle-formatted files.
| zerreh50 wrote:
| And that means you give your epub to Amazon to convert, and
| whatever else they feel like doing with it.
| magpi3 wrote:
| He mentioned in the article that his Kindle is not connected to
| the internet (didn't explain why), so this is a no-go for him.
| butokai wrote:
| This setup feels cumbersome, since you also have to manually
| track which items you have read. Kobo seems to offer better
| features in this sense (better than a jail broken kindle),
| however I like the build of my Kindle Oasis 2 too much.
| adhamsalama wrote:
| I faced the same issue, but I wanted to use my Kindle to read RSS
| feeds without relying on my PC, phone or Amazon, so I built a
| FOSS web-based RSS reader compatible with the Kindle browser. It
| may make your life a lot simpler.
|
| Link: https://inkfeed.xyz Repo:
| https://github.com/adhamsalama/inkfeed-reader
| adhamsalama wrote:
| I discovered this post while reading Hacker News on my Kindle
| BTW.
| floch wrote:
| Interesting project! I'd love to self-host but can't find the
| backend server code - could you share a link to its repo?
| longnguyen wrote:
| Nice. I quit my job to build a product[0] to solve this exact
| problem.
|
| I'm not interested in news but I love reading blog posts,
| newsletters and interesting technical discussions on HN or
| reddit.
|
| So I built KTool as a "read it later on Kindle" solution. It
| supports web links, newsletters (via email forwarding) and RSS. I
| also added the ability to compile multiple articles into one
| magazine/ebook and deliver them at a specific time.
|
| Give it a try if you're a Kindle owner.
|
| [0]: https://ktool.io
| zoidb wrote:
| FYI there are some styling issues on your landing page on
| Firefox mobile (dont see it on chrome)
| longnguyen wrote:
| Thank you. Working on the fix rn
| johnhamlin wrote:
| I discovered KTool here when you launched and I love it! I hope
| you're doing well
| longnguyen wrote:
| Thank you for your early support
| mparnisari wrote:
| I have a kobo and I use Instapaper. Is this similar?
| LeoDaVibeci wrote:
| That's so cool, I would love to have a less distracting
| experience while reading the news.
|
| It could even be paired with an AI summary service that could
| summarize Reddit/HN activity, like Huxe does in it's generated
| podcasts.
| 0x53 wrote:
| I also just did this! My solution was to automate creation of a
| set of static html pages that I view in the "experimental" kindle
| browser. It's set to scrape a paper and build the site at 6am
| every morning. That was I don't have to mess with the file
| transfers, and it's there waiting for me when I wake up. Also I
| can mess with the layout a bit easier. Only downside is that I
| have to have next/back buttons rather than tapping on the screen.
| tpaschalis wrote:
| Nice write up!
|
| After a couple of attempts I settled on a a different approach
| for my old Kobo.
|
| It can connect to Dropbox so I deployed a small app in Fly.io
| which takes a link, bundles it as an epub and uploads to the
| right folder. Day-to-day all I use is a bookmarklet
| nguyendinhdoan wrote:
| Love this approach -- using existing hardware creatively instead
| of buying new gear. The Readeck + Calibre pipeline is clever,
| especially since Readeck can export directly to ePub.
|
| One thing worth noting: if the "requires a computer" limitation
| bothers you, KOReader (an open-source reader that runs on Kindle)
| can fetch RSS feeds and even Wallabag/Readeck content natively
| over wifi. Might close that last gap without needing a new
| device.
| lnenad wrote:
| A while ago I made this to get content from websites for reading
| in pdf. With what I use (Supernote) you can have an automated
| script to pull articles in the morning and put them in a dropbox
| folder that automatically syncs with the device.
|
| https://github.com/lnenad/newser
| rbanffy wrote:
| That's wonderful. And I can do that to my 1st gen Nook as well.
| naftalibeder wrote:
| Hopefully condoned plug for a service I built, Polyreader
| (https://polyreader.app), which lets you quickly send articles to
| your Kindle.
|
| It supports (multiple simultaneous) collections, send via email,
| saving new articles from links while reading on your Kindle, and
| little niceties like sending yourself a reminder note at the end
| of an article ("tell mom this was interesting").
|
| It's also cheap (free tier or $1/month).
| rcarmo wrote:
| I've had Calibre running someplace and mailing me news every
| weekend for around... 15 years?
|
| I keep waiting for Amazon to break mail-to-kindle, but
| fortunately that hasn't happened yet. Gmail, though... breaks
| every three months or so.
| spidermonkey23 wrote:
| made something with vibe assistance, for generating ebooks from
| the guardian.com.
|
| the approach here is to self host a web service and download the
| books from the experimental browser as .mobi for kindle use.
| These are then fully local and easy to delete after.
| https://github.com/tomesparon/guardian-rss-mobi-maker
| general_reveal wrote:
| iPad with paper-like is a much more versatile device. Just turn
| the brightness now.
| saadn92 wrote:
| There's something really satisfying about these kinds of personal
| pipelines. You stitch together a few tools that weren't designed
| to work together, automate the glue, and end up with something
| that fits your workflow better than any single product could. I
| love it.
|
| I've built a few of these for myself -- a bridge that exposes
| Apple Notes over HTTP so I can access them from a Linux VM, a
| sync tool that pulls Notion pages down as local markdown. None of
| them are "products" but they're some of the most useful things
| I've built. The common thread is always the same: take something
| locked into one device or ecosystem and make it accessible where
| you actually want it.
|
| The author's point about not needing a new device is the right
| instinct. The best version of this stuff is almost always "what
| can I do with what I already have" before reaching for new
| hardware.
|
| Btw, I have my own Kindle Oasis, so want to give this a shot!
| bobek wrote:
| I went the complete opposite and print one A4 every morning [0],
| so I don't have to touch any device.
|
| [0]: https://github.com/bobek/rannich-5minut-denikn
| MinimalAction wrote:
| This is great! Love this project. Do you know of anything like
| this in English as well?
| clickety_clack wrote:
| This should be a normal thing you can do on a kindle. I miss
| kindle magazines.
| almogo wrote:
| I did something similar. My computer crawls lite.cnn.com each
| Saturday. I feed it all into Gemini who composes a "front page"
| with links in HTML. Then the whole thing is converted to a PDF
| and uploaded to my Google drive with the day's date as the title.
| My Boox reader (some Chinese company) is synced to my Google
| Drive and I just open it from there. I didn't even code any of
| this, Gemini did.
|
| It's a nice thing to read on Saturday morning with a coffee.
| theptip wrote:
| I tried to put together something similar... I guess it is
| reassuring that others are struggling to find a nice e2e setup as
| well.
|
| I was intending to vibe code the whole pipeline then stumbled
| onto Readwise, $10/mo is currently cheap enough to prevent me
| from building my own.
|
| (I splurged on the Boox so I could easily use/build Android apps
| on the reader/collection side.)
|
| It does feel like there is a big OSS gap here, and I wish
| Readwise luck on commercializing too.
|
| From my side the remaining piece is building my own
| recommendation / crawling pipeline to expand my set of RSS feeds,
| feels like a good project to add on and Readwise seems quite
| extensible so it's a good base to build on.
| nonninz wrote:
| Quite ironically, readeck is not able to parse this article
|
| EDIT: used the firefox extension to save it, pasting the link
| directly into readeck works :)
| nunez wrote:
| Nice. I consumed Hacker News like this for a few weeks.
| natios wrote:
| i created my own rss reader + bookmark list website that i just
| access through the kindle browser (i dont have it logged into any
| amazon account though). yours is a cool internet-less idea
| though!
| mangoparrot wrote:
| Might be personal plug but I just wanted to read substack on my
| kindle.
|
| I built readry to solve this issue. It's completely free for
| forwarding your emails to kindle along with qr codes for images
| and links so i can open up on my phone if needed
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