ReMarkable MicroSD (2019)
davisr.me
davisr.me
Since the remarkable has a micro USB port, does anyone know if it supports OTG devices?
It's such an awesome device. 90% of its awesomeness comes from the fact that they respect the GPLv3 license and give you root access to it trough ssh out-of-the-box (random password and requires activating it).
If I get enough time on my hands, I'm probably going to port postmarketOS on it.
The OS has udev and systemd support and it's very easy to cross compile code with arm-linux-gnueabihf-gcc. I was able to build static binaries of packages with just the following option:
./configure --target=arm-linux-gnueabi --host=arm-linux-gnueabi --build=x86_64-linux CFLAGS="-static"
make LDFLAGS="-static"
The iMX supports an OTG port in it's stage 0 ROM for device recovery, and it can be lit up as a USB gadget. It's just a question if it's padded out on the PCB. Seems like there's a number of pogo pin pads near the edge of the board and it's probably in there somewhere.
If anyone is looking to do this mod, at least consider using a shielded ribbon cable like so:
https://www.amazon.com/LANMU-Extension-Flexible-Monoprice-Ra...
In addition, the card will by default start in a 12.5MB/s mode at 3.3v, which is 25MHz per lane. That's not DC, but it's definitely slow enough to run on some pretty dodgy wiring. It will only switch to higher speed modes if requested, and if it actually works (falling back to lower speeds otherwise).
Definitely no need for a shielded cable either.
And the 30awg wires can go around corners without folding.
You definitely don't need a shielded cable. SD is very robust. Hell, I've seen people run SPI or I2C over similar lengths and types of cable and those two protocols are much less robust than SD.
Another thing I've I've noticed is that the userbase is highly skilled, people on the subreddit and discord are constantly publishing hacks and patches and discussing customization options. It's a very cool community.
Also available in the sidebar of the subreddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/RemarkableTablet/), in case the invite expires.
I have a ReMarkable and really love it, mainly for taking it to meetings where I felt it was inapropriate to be stuck on a laptop infront of other people, it just feels more natural making notes on it as if I had paper and with the low latency it's great to write on.
I haven't had issues with the internal storage not being enough - but if I do, this is really interesting and I hope the hacker community around ReMarkable stays vibrant as it's such an interesting device.
Another two-star review also from 2018 [2] talking about exported notes only being raster pictures instead of PDF (even more ideal is time-series encoded vector data inside the PDF as a side-channel that can be read back out so other software can perform their own post-capture analysis upon the user's interaction via the pen/eraser with raw pressure, tilt, coordinate, tip type, etc. data). But it looks like PDF now is possible, and the exporting problems can be worked around [3]?
How stable have you and others found the software in 2020 for sharing back out PDF annotations and raw "use it as a notepad"?
[1] https://smile.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R1RTYZLCSJR76H/...
[2] https://smile.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R3FGY3FH3XW6OT/...
A one star review from 2018 is an anecdote that seems well out of the norm. I wouldn't draw too much from a single 2.5 year old review with very few similar experiences; especially when everyone else says the product is solid.
I have had 1 issue in my 2+ years of use where the device rebooted while I was in the middle of writing something, and when it came back, only my last couple of seconds of writing gesture were lost. I don't think about it from a reliability perspective.
I have been pushing data to mine as well, with a local amalgam that de-drms kindle books, convert to pdf, push to remarkable cloud, which is then retrieved by my device. Have done > 100 books, all good.
Really great device. Would contribute equity to them were such an option available.
It can get a little complicated with references across multiple volumes, since unless you copy the entire index into each later volume, you have to check each book - but what I frequently find myself doing is referencing other volumes by page number in the actual content of notes, to simplify later lookups. That and knowing which volume contains which page numbers (I use a single type of notebook and they're 160 pages each, so e.g. page 210 is easily identified as being in volume 2) makes it pretty easy to keep track of the whole thread and retrieve whatever context I need at any given time.
Granted, this gets a little more complicated when you work sometimes from home and sometimes at the office; unless you carry all your notebooks from place to place, you can find yourself unable to follow a reference. But it's pretty rare in my experience to need to look back more than one volume, and in any case I intend to be strongly remote-first for the rest of my career, with all the money and effort I've put into setting up a maximally productive workspace in my home office during COVID.
In both cases, it also makes for a more compact scheme of reference, since I only need to write "pp. 380-382", rather than "vol. 3 pp 20-22" or "pp. 3/20-22" or some other such notation that requires an explicit volume number - not that that's not a somewhat post hoc reason, but I have found it to be convenient, and there's nothing wrong in any case with deriving some enjoyment from the fact that the very page numbers themselves reflect the extent to which I've developed journaling and notetaking into deliberate and durable practices in their own right. (Especially when I number the pages of a fresh volume, as part of the process of preparing it when I approach the end of the one I've been filling. Numbering from 1 to 180 over and over again seems like it'd get dull! Numbering from 999 to eleven hundred and whatever, as I did yesterday, is much more enjoyable.)
All that aside, I definitely don't have any argument for why the scheme I use is the scheme everyone should use. It's just what works best for me, and in the context of any running document someone maintains for their own use, what works best for them is what matters.
I have been, for 30+ years, a heavy paper notebook writer, with a whole workflow- a superset of the bullet workflow for todos, but also supporting creative writing/brainstorming, and other workflows. I have spent untold...thousands...on pens, levenger paper, storage of square meters of old notebooks, the whole 9.
It took me a long time- calendar-wise- to transition to the remarkable, because the ergonomics are completely different. In some ways better, in some ways not as good, in many ways not as good from an all-digital perspective as it could be. But I have faith in the org in their choices going forward to build on the base that exists now.
It's not an ipad. It's not a consumption-first device. It's a production-first device.
It's very different from paper, and far from perfect for what it is, but I would not go back to paper. And I see it as an improvement to laptop for some uses cases. Depending on how the remarkable 2 feels I may get some for my kids.
I am still waiting for my ReMarkable 2 preorder since it got with some covid delay, I hope it will be easy to develop for it since it does include a USB-C and an Accessory port.
Honestly even if they were more expensive the non android kindles are way better than most android tablets for anything except games.
I explain it all in this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21041543
This received some attention in the re--it community last month--the company still does not care [0]. It's a tragedy because their hardware is good, otherwise and they can compete on that.
[0]: https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/hl09g7/onyx_boox_chi...
Anyway doesn't all that stuff apply to Samsung and Apple equally
Note that this is a fork of previous work from Oscar Morrison, no copyright infringement intended (I have contacted him).
Used to go into meetings where a key member had one and would take notes on it. To me, he looked so damn cool.
But alas, it's not for me - I tried moleskins and other things, but I always get frustrated at writing and I never looked back at any notes I took.
Since all my meetings are video calls now, I've reverted to writing notes, simply because I can't feign concentration on the call and type into a different window at the same time.
I finish my days surrounded by scraps of paper to be typed up. Can't wait for my ReMarkable 2 to arrive.
I used to try to take meeting notes electronically, with a laptop or an iPad or whatever. Paper turns out to just work a lot better, for me at least. It doesn't take me out of the flow of a discussion the way dealing with a computer does, I never have battery problems, and I think there's really something to the idea that the process of writing by hand helps fix memories in a way that typing doesn't.
edit: I can also vouch for the value of fountain pens in making the process of writing pleasant in its own right. A well-designed pen requires only the pressure of its own weight under gravity to deposit ink reliably; much of learning how to write with such a pen is thus unlearning the forcible hand required to use more conventional writing instruments, with the very pleasant side effect of making finger aches and hand cramps largely a thing of the past. For the same reason, most people find their handwriting to improve as a result of the switch - without the need to ram the nib into the paper just to get a line at all, you find yourself more able to write neatly without having to overcontrol the way you do with a pencil, ballpoint, or even a rollerball. Developing a beautiful, personal hand is a pleasure all its own, and nothing else I've ever tried has helped me do that nearly as well as using a fountain pen has. And, with a little practice, taking notes quickly is easier than ever before, too - it's amazing how much of a difference it makes when your hand doesn't start to hurt after just a page or two!
It's a practice I'm happy to recommend, and not at all difficult to start; a Pilot Metropolitan in medium or fine should run you somewhere between $12 and $20, with Pilot Namiki replacement cartridges usually about 50 cents each in packs of six or twelve, and almost any Moleskine-type notebook will do. That's where I started, and while I've since moved on to a system more tailored to my specific purposes, that's definitely the starting point I'd recommend as an inexpensive way to get a sense of fountain pens' strengths and weaknesses in general.
As I think must be very evident by now, I'm happy to talk about this stuff! It's become a bit of a hobby in its own right for me, so if you have questions, feel free to hit me up and I'll do my best to give useful answers.
Alas, I wasn't taught it while neuroplastic, and have been unable to get the hang of it. I regret that my teachers were clueless about the peculiarities of lefthandedness, but at least I'm not of the era when it would have been beaten out of me.
I'm considering giving fountain pens a try once my refills run out.
So it's not a huge investment to give it a try and see if you like it, is what I'm trying to say! And there's no compromise on quality involved with the Metropolitan, either; I've paid four or five times as much for Western pens that didn't work a quarter so well. For all that it's kind of a cliché about Japanese companies, Pilot really is pretty obviously fanatical about quality even in their entry-level lines, and the Metropolitan reflects that; they are by far the best steel-nibbed pens I've used, and I still prefer one for letter writing with the 1.1mm stub nib.
(Also, in my experience at least, there's a good deal of adaptation early on to develop the lighter hand, and a steel nib is much more forgiving of excess force than a gold one like my Decimo uses.)
Other than the lighter hand, one thing you'll definitely notice is a difference in weight; Metropolitan bodies are turned from brass, and the result is a pen that's both heavier and balanced further back than you'll be initially used to. That actually helps, since you can support the weight of the pen in the web of your thumb and find a natural balance point that lets the pen's weight, instead of your hand, provide the force. But it does also take some getting used to, and some prefer a lighter pen - part of why I ended up with the Decimo is its aluminum body, and the polymer-bodied Lamy Safari is a good entry-level option if you're concerned about weight and comfort.
Try using a fountain pen! I was a little self-conscious at first too. It helps that no one really cares, though. And now I have an ironclad excuse not to lend anyone my pen, which is nice considering that my ballpoints used to go walking with Jesus so often that I ended up keeping three spares in my backpack.
It’s not like they are generating some insane profit margin on these things.
Considering an Apple stylus retails for 90€, Samsung S Pen for 40€ and Wacom Bamboo stylus for 50€ the current 40€ extra seem absolutely fair for me in a premium niche market.
Only because Remarkable retardly decided to not go with side buttons in order to preserve the "feel".
If I wanted paper I'd use paper, the side button on the Lamy on my remarkable 1 is vastly superior to RM2 back eraser
HN is not among them. Please don't.
https://www.apple.com/apple-pencil/.
You don't have to buy the $49 Remarkable eraser stylus. You could also get the free one that comes with it.
I do find it uh... "remarkable" that people are offended at a $49 upsell from a small company, given $2 trillion + companies do this all of the time at a higher price.
That's all I was getting at.
I used to be into eink displays but the contrast ratio is too low and it looks too blurry for me so I went back to screens. Eye strain was the first reason they said eink was good for eye strain. Turns out it's the DPI or PPI, so essentially an iPad with retina is less eye strain. I use AMOLED to read since I read that the wavelengths of blue light also are bad.
I'm not saying it's that way for everyone, but if I'm going to be reading for a while then my kindle paperwhite is much better for my eyes than any backlit screen I've used.
It also specifically mentions glare and reflection being part of the problem, something eInk displays are better at than normal displays IMHO, because they don't project light at your eyes.
Do you have any links to "the science" here? Because a quick search seems to pull up a few things supporting less eyestrain from eInk than other screens, regardless of resolution. For example - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24386252/
I hope that whatever you link to takes into account different screen technologies too - I can understand that it makes a difference on back-lit LCD monitors, but I'm going to take more convincing that the same necessarily applies to eInk tablets, as that would contradict personal experience as well as other material I've seen.
This is tautological. Do you mean 'front lighting'?
I use it mostly to take notes in meetings and as a scratch pad. The small vertical separation between the surface and the screen and the replaceable tips make it feel _very_ close to writing on real paper.
For PDFs, I found the first-gen processor to be too slow to be practical. I doubt this has improved much.
The e-Ink screen can make flipping through past notes a bit of a pain. For reading/later reference, I prefer opening the notes on a real computer via the desktop app/cloud sync.
I did not order the ReMarkable 2 because I felt the upgrades were not worth the price. While I would love to have an eraser tip and USB-C, it _is_ still a very expensive gadget.
I also decided to preorder a 2 because the thing that breaks immersion for me the most currently is having to switch to eraser mode. I may still keep my 1 as well though, because as another commenter mentioned the biggest slow down is trying to flip back through notes on the device (even using the zoomed out view it can be quite slow with larger documents). I have been working through a few math textbooks and am actually looking forward to being able to have problems open on one tablet and the book on the other.
This beats them all. Yes, there are software quirks, some huge gaps in the system (cut and paste between notebooks), but it's always available with no friction.
If the controller doesn't die, then the next reliability issue for your eMMC module is probably NAND wear. The ReMarkable has an 8GB eMMC module. Such a module can probably manage at least 1TB TBW (Total Bytes Written), and you won't reach that too quickly: the OS will eat a significant chunk of that 1TB, but apart from that all you do on this device is reading, writing and drawing. Those tasks do not require many program/erase cycles on the NAND at all, so I'd say it would take many years before you've worn out the NAND blocks.
Why is that? One would assume the NAND was the most likely point of failure.
One trick is to heat the device to 60-70°C. You can use heated bed of a 3D printer.
The Remarkable is an awesome device, but it's so very limited by the software. It's extremely difficult to use it in a enterprise scenario due to lack of at rest encryption (on device) and no (official) private cloud options.
Running Gnome on it is possible. But you do not want to.