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FWIW, there is a tiny webapp on the device that you access when you follow the instructions above. You do not need to install anything and it worked perfectly fine for me so far.

Also, you can ssh into the device and even get root access. I have not tried it yet but I guess scp would work as well.

Last but not least: They recently changed their subscription service in a big way, opening up a lot of features that were subscription-only before to all device owners: https://remarkable.com/blog/big-changes-are-coming-to-the-re...

The thing is basically a tiny Linux machine running a webserver and ssh. You can mess with it all you like (with the usual caveats about knowing what you're doing and risking bricking it).

I've ssh'd into mine and it looks just like you'd expect. I didn't mess with anything (because I know that I don't know what I'm doing with it).

I've also used the "email me a PDF of this page" function a couple of times and it works perfectly.

I bought mine before the subscription kicked in, and got grandfathered in, so I can't comment on that.

> Also, you can ssh into the device and even get root access

How to get the password?

It's on the reMarkable, under 'Settings > Help > Copyrights and licenses'

It's in the settings menu

https://remarkablewiki.com/tech/ssh#:~:text=to%20transfer%20....

scp doesn't work as their default reader renames the file and keeps a database. (That's probably why it doesn't present a usb disk.) Getting files to my remarkable (1) is honestly my only complaint with it.

You can run koreader or others, and then scp would be usable.

I just type "pdf2remarkable.sh whatever.pdf" in my terminal and it's done. Using a variant of this script:

https://github.com/adaerr/reMarkableScripts/blob/master/pdf2...

These features were free to begin with! Then they got greedy (imo a marketing / sales background product manager thought they should price more aggressively) and started charging for basic features! Honestly the device was completely unusable at that point. And now they are reverting ONLY because Kindle Scribe is going to be out soon, and they need to look like they are a similar product. I can guarantee that unless they have a major shake up in their organization or put it in writing that they will not change their service offerings, this will absolutely happen again.

But if you're worried about greed ruining a good product, Kindle Scribe is an Amazon product and Amazon isn't exactly known for being a champion of its customers (though maybe I'm unfairly conflating their web store with the tablet branch).

> or put it in writing that they will not change their service offerings

Also I put zero faith in what a company puts in writing unless it's in a legally binding contract. Anything else is trivial to change or ignore.

For something really important, I binding contract might not be enough.

IIRC there was a U.S. bankruptcy ruling where supposedly never-sharable info was sold off.

Maybe having the relevant technical data (keys, source code, etc.) held in escrow by a trustworthy party would work?

> (though maybe I'm unfairly conflating their web store with the tablet branch).

this is exactly what you are doing. I've owned every kindle model since it was first released.

I no longer shop on amazon's marketplace and cancelled my prime membership. If i want to buy "made in china" products i can cut out the middleman and go to aliexpress.

The Kindle on the other hand is a solid product.

Amazon may have many flaws, but it is pretty much known for being a champion of its customers.

Only time will tell. I'd be tempted to buy one, but at present I'd rather wait some more time for the PineNote to reach an usable state. My use case would be mostly at home, so it would be essential to be able to read from local NFS or SMB shares, caching on the on board SD card the latest accessed books, something that would be trivial to implement in a Open Source reader, but I doubt commercial ones would do. And of course any attempt to force me use a phone app or any online services would immediately turn me away.

It's not just fiscal greed, either.

Their services are all hosted in Hong Kong, which means that they're subject to China's domestic spying apparatus and rules on encryption.

You'd have to be a moron to trust a device which uses Chinese-territory-hosted servers to store and OCR your documents.

The remarkable2 is a more expensive (if you count subscription fees for 2-3 years), far less capable, far less private device than an iPad with Apple Pencil. You can get the screen texture for a few dollars off Amazon.

Almost any iPad can do text recognition and handwriting recognition completely offline; this thing can't do any of that without an internet connection.

They keep having to pimp it on HN because it's not a competitive-in-the-marketplace device.

The use case for the ReMarkable is not the same as the use case for an iPad. There are other e-ink writing tablets out there besides ReMarkable obviously, but iPad did not at all satisfy what I was looking for in a note taking/paper reading tablet. It was like a glorified second phone with a shit writing interface. Very glad I switched to e-ink.

All cloud features remained free for people who owned the device before they implemented the subscription model as far as I know, it's not a bait and switch.

This is true for now. As someone who bought the original ~3-4 years ago, I feel very nervous that the way I use my $500 device is not aligned with the company’s long term road map. Add the fact that I recommended this device to a bunch of friends and family (the v1 is a great product) and I am personally on the hook for figuring out how to get half a dozen annoyed friends/family to get ssh access. The cost of them changing this is high for me personally and I really don’t have a lot of faith that they will not discontinue this subscription waiver at some point in the future.

This.

This is the true difficulty with clawing back features in order to charge for them: you break trust.

Businesses income in aggregate is not immediately affected by choices that break trust (in fact, the short-term balance sheet might even show increased profits) but it’s very hard to un-sour people once you’ve broken trust.

I think they just started to run out of money because nobody was buying and their competition annihilates them in terms of features.

Do you know one of the things people really want from the tablet?

The ability to draw shapes. They don't add it on the basis of idealism "it must be like paper".

To echo this, I have a Likebook Mimas, and this is exactly how it's implemented. I realize they're different, but I'm not surprised they're similar.

Repeat after me: "Traditional hardware purchases do not support software investments", as Zach Supalla so decisively put it (https://www.atomsandbits.io/p/hardware-software-business-mod...).

You can not ask for cloud-enabled conveniences, as well as bug fixes, security updates, and product improvements for years to come for a one time fee.

Increasingly, devices are a delivery mechanism for software, and one way or another you have to pay for the software.

In fact: I think remarkable is the perfect product for a subscription. Once they reach the ideal hardware there’s no need for them to continue changing it, no need to chase features, no need to try to make new colours or update the style just to sell more hardware to the same customers.

But they still need to keep the company running for all the things that we’d want out of a long-term product (driver updates, bugfixes, security fixes, feature simplification).

Personally I don’t want to foot the bill for “cloud services” as I’d rather self-host, but for Good Tools I’m comfortable with more of a Patreon model where my subscription helps everyone.

>You can not ask for cloud-enabled conveniences, as well as bug fixes, security updates, and product improvements for years to come for a one time fee.

Of all the products I own, this one has delighted me like no other - specifically because they are constantly updating the SW for free. I have bought every HW release from them for over a decade now:

https://www.fractalaudio.com/iii/

From the site: "Fractal Audio set a new precedent for the industry with the philosophy of free updates. Historically most companies have been content with one or two firmware updates over the life of a product (usually to fix bugs), or even charging a fee for updates. At Fractal Audio we believe a digital audio processor is a platform that grows as our knowledge and expertise grows. Just as personal computers receive frequent updates to improve performance and add features, we steadily release firmware updates to improve the capabilities of our products.

The Axe-Fx II series received no fewer than 29 major (and dozens of minor) firmware upgrades over its life cycle. The Axe-Fx III is designed with the same anti-obsolescence in mind."

It’s fully possible to access from a computer but is only easy really for computer power users. I never use the network sync features myself but for some people that is significantly easier. I think it’s a good compromise… they need the subscription to make money I guess.

I really love mine. Bought it for notes and for reading academic papers. Absolutely excels at both these things.

My biggest complaints:

* not in color (not their fault)

* i wish i could search my handwritten notes

Otherwise, having an infinitely expandable library of notebooks is amazing.

I've been considering getting one for some time, but they lost me at "subscription" as well. I have another tablet which works just fine, except their auth server was taken down and now it is a "precision-engineered dud" as you put it.

I will go with the Amazon version. Sure Amazon has its problems but it is more likely to be around in the next few years and less likely to make changes to a subscription service in order to "monetize the customer" or some business nonsense.

Have you looked at the BOOX tablets? I have an Note air 2, which is very similar to remarkable. The software is just android with a different UI. You can install whatever android app you want, transfer any file you want and so on.

It is about as non locked down as you can get for a "normal" tablet, which you can't say about the amazon devices...

Yes, i have actually narrowed it down to some sort of BOOX prior to the Scribe being released.

Will delay my purchase for a bit and do another review of the BOOX offering vs Scribe.

Amazon's devices are locked down (their tablets are terrible for this) but the kindle is a simple device and easy to side-load books bought elsewhere so it works well for me.

I had one before they introduced the subscription. Pretty much soured me on the device. The software was still kludgy, and it was clear the direction they were going wasn’t a direction I wanted to go in. Pity, because the hardware was pretty good. But moving things to and from the device sucked.

I wonder if they considered stepping back to the 1990's and sell the device and give free bug fixes but charge for new major versions of their software?

I agree that it should just be a mass storage device.

Fwiw you can connect it to Wifi and transfer files using an open source GUI program called ReMy. It uses ssh. No cloud storage account needed.

https://github.com/bordaigorl/remy

I'd generally agree with you on subscriptions but not sure in this case. I think the subscription actually creates an incentive for them to keep the machine updated and working well and its set at a low level. I've seen too much hardware where once they make the profit on the sale they lose interest.

Actually I really like the network interface thing, it can allow a lot more control over the device than a block storage interfact will provide.

This is one of the first things you do when you jailbreak your kindle, it allows you to ssh/sftp onto the device. I do think having a option to toggle between Block Device and Network would be nice

I've had one for over a year. I have not connected it to WiFi yet, no subscription. I just draw in it. There are github repos to connect to it, would be nice rather than taking a picture of the screen.