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Comment by runeks | Hacker News Reader

Does anyone know if it's possible to use a ReMarkable tablet as an external laptop monitor?

In the summer I like to sit outside coding, but the sunlight outshines my laptops LCD display. So I'd like to use an eInk display as an external monitor. And I gather ReMarkable is the best bet because of their hackability.

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For monitor you need high refresh rate. Dasung monitors are the only option right now. My only regret with dasung monitor is that I didn't buy is sooner. I can work long hours now without my eyes getting tired.

http://www.dasungtech.com/

Wow that thing looks amazing

How do you work on such a small screen? I don't see myself using an ide on that one.

How about using it as a _laptop_? See my project: Parabola-rM

http://www.davisr.me/projects/parabola-rm/

https://old.reddit.com/r/RemarkableTablet/comments/iis4fo/em...

The refresh rate on e-ink is so low that coding on one would probably be excruciating. You should think of it as a replacement for paper, not a replacement for a monitor.

If your laptop isn't very bright, you're mostly out of luck. You can work in the shade, try polarized glasses, buy a brighter laptop, or find a portable monitor that is brighter than your built-in panel.

> If your laptop isn't very bright ... buy a brighter laptop ... and a portable monitor that is brighter

As someone who works with my laptop outside in the sun a lot, the trick is not to have a brighter laptop but to have one with a matte display instead of glossy, and use bright backgrounds for everything. Even when I'm in direct sunlight, matte display and light themes make me able to see my code without any squinting or troubles.

> The refresh rate on e-ink is so low that coding on one would probably be excruciating

If you've edited files in vim over a spotty SSH connection and wasn't phased too much by it, you could probably survive the e-ink refresh rate as well.

I was under the impression that matte displays are uncommon these days, but I agree that's a good option if they're buying a new laptop.

Probably. It seems the X1 Carbon (the laptop I have) has most editions with anti-glare screen though. Found this site that could be helpful for people looking for matte displays: https://www.productchart.com/laptops/sets/1

Or used intellij over a Citrix terminal for a bank client, for that matter.

If you're looking to use an e-ink tablet as an external monitor, you should also consider the larger BOOX e-ink tablets. The BOOX Max (starting from the last gen) and the new Max Lumi offer HDMI input for external monitor use.

Among other VNC clients I've checked the only one that realy worked for me and I've managed to compile was this one:

https://github.com/matteodelabre/vnsee

The author is also very nice and responsive to bug reports.

I've managed to make it work as second monitor for linux virtual machine.

I wish I could use it as second monitor for Mac and was unable to make it work with MacOS so far.

Anyone made it work with Mac? Who knows how to make it work with MacOS ?

I suspect (based on similar issues years ago) that you could get it working on MacOS in either one of two ways:

1. Set a password for the setting “VNC viewers may control screen with password:” in the screen sharing settings. Most of the issue with standard VNC clients is that MacOS uses MacOS-specific login security, but setting a password opens it up to VNC-standard security

2. Install an alternate VNC server on the Mac. This bypasses all the MacOS security nonsense.

Thank you very much for advice. Any specific VNC server working with Mac you have in mind ?

You’re welcome.

I don’t have personal experience, but for these types of low-level things, I start my research with `brew`. In this case it looks like https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/tiger-vnc is a contender.

There is a VNC client which would allow to to do just that

Are you talking about this one:

https://github.com/matteodelabre/vnsee

Or you know another one? Did you manage to conntect it with Mac?

If you’re still curious about connecting to a Mac, check my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25128588

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