A used can be bought for around US $50, much cheaper than buying the individual components, and it also doubles as an eBook reader.

The Colour Kobo versions should be preferred over the BW ones. Also, add a nice case and it should look good.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49743786

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

Yes, issues is where we are talking currently, though we have started a sub on Reddit too for those who are not on GitHub and want to share suggestions, bugs, app requests /r/CobaltForKobo

Current priority is a stable SDK, support for oauth and token for adding apps like Dropbox, read later ones etc. and a larger app ecosystem eventually.

There are current issues and PRs for Clara HD and Color devices support so we can take it up by common generations.

NickelMenu is a mature project and perfect at what it does, we just have different goals. NickelMenu is designed to extend Kobo's stock interface. Cobalt is designed to be an app platform like Android has for example. I wanted app creators to just write their app logic and not build things like a UI toolkit for their apps, app lifecycle and rendering support (framebuffer drawing, partial eInk refreshes, touch input handling etc.), bluetooth handling, sensor and more. Anything launched through NickelMenu like KOReader or Plato have to implement these on their own.

AFAIK NickelMenu command actions spawn arbitrary shell cmds that inherit root from Nickel, we avoid it by running apps as separate unprivileged processes with declared capabilities like network, storage, audio, fronlight etc.

I also wanted to provide ability to quickly build apps with the SDK and our simulator to test apps on before putting it on the real device, an app store to get new apps over the WiFi after the initial USB install.

This was more oriented on making my life easier, say I have an app idea that I want on my Kobo tomorrow and how quickly can I bring it live on the device. The 'you can run apps' I wrote was meant to signify anyone can now create apps using the SDK without bothering about the device specific bits and publish them and install it via Cobalt's app store. I hope this clarifies things.

I created this as I could not find anything existing that gives the capabilities I wanted. I read several things downloaded over web apart from books on my Mac and phone, which I would prefer to do on an eInk display. Search papers on arxiv and read them offline later, Substack, even spending a lot of time on chess puzzles, monitor my Claude/Codex remotely, generate explainer audiobooks and listen to them on my bluetooth speaker etc.

The longer battery and the display makes some use cases really shine and I wanted to create apps for my own Kobo and potentially helpful for others as well.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49390427

Points: 662

# Comments: 213

Have built the SDK and some apps like an HN Client, ChatGPT client, Claude Code permissions sidekick, RSS Reader, some games etc. (all in the same above repo)

It has 8x less powerful hardware than a modern raspberry pi but runs Linux with an eink display, wifi bluetooth and a good battery life for $100 or something.

This SDK provides more of an android/iOS type framework to use underlying hardware like bluetooth, wifi, battery and a bunch of UI components for creating complex apps with eink rendering, notifications, managed windows, OTA updates, a simulator, a sidekick mode for your apps and more.

I have been using it to read HN, as an RSS reader over my news and blog sources, generate audiobooks on topics I want to understand with ElevenLabs, Exa and OpenAI and listen via connecting its bluetooth to my speakers and even as a remote Claude Code & Codex approval sidekick.

It is amazing that a $100 device with a single core and 512mb RAM can do so much and run for so long.

Here is the open-sourced platform https://github.com/BandarLabs/Cobalt

The older ones which do are severely restricted in features, and often end up with several issues. Have you tried it personally?

The other day I wanted to build personal apps for my Kobo device. It has a single ~800Mhz core and 512 MB of RAM, probably eight times less than a rasbperry pi, but runs a Linux.

I wanted to break free from watching my laptop screen for long Claude sessions partially due to degrading eyesight and have a sidekick for approvals streamed to the Kobo. Apart from the Claude and Codex permissions sidekick done via hooks, I ended up building an entire SDK, an HN client, an RSS discovery & reader and an audiobook generator using deep research and ElevenLabs API all running on it.

Anyone using an LLM can now personalize it for their own Kobo device, which might have some nuances over my Clara BW. Significantly less work I hope than doing it all from scratch even with a coding agent.

https://github.com/BandarLabs/Cobalt

I built an SDK to help me create apps I wanted on my Kobo. My Kobo device has a single core <1GHz processor and 512MB RAM, much less than a Raspberry Pi, but the eInk display and larger battery life opens up a lot of use cases.

I have since used it to build an approval sidekick for my Mac's Claude code and codex, a Hacker News Client for Kobo, a Gutenberg reader, an RSS search and reader and more. All the code is in the repo.

If you have a different device than mine (Clara BW) would love for you to test it on your device and submit a PR to enable this for more device profiles.

Thanks.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49141871

Points: 5

# Comments: 0