Hacking an old Kindle to display bus arrival times

Re:Hacking an old Kindle to display bus arrival times by FlyingSnake on Tuesday February 24, 2026 @03:27PM (#47142460)

Kindles are fun devices to hack and play with. I can grab an old kindle for €15-20 on eBay.

I did the same last year and had lots of fun in the process.

https://samkhawase.com/blog/hacking-kindle/

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Re:Hacking an old Kindle to display bus arrival times by mengchengfeng on Tuesday February 24, 2026 @03:38PM (#47142632)

I love it! Always fun to see the route somebody else took to get to the same end product.

Your post is making me want to try more Cloudflare Developer Platform stuff like Cloudflare Workers.

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Re:Hacking an old Kindle to display bus arrival times by moffkalast on Tuesday February 24, 2026 @04:29PM (#47143355)

For the less reverse-engineering prone among us, there are also similarly sized e-ink displays that plug into Raspberry Pi DSI ports for maybe $5 more on Aliexpress. They might actually be salvaged kindle screens.

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Re:Hacking an old Kindle to display bus arrival times by slig on Tuesday February 24, 2026 @05:24PM (#47144157)

Do you have a model number or link, please?

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Re:Hacking an old Kindle to display bus arrival times by bartvk on Wednesday February 25, 2026 @03:06AM (#47148731)

I seriously do not like people saying "it's on AliExpress". I'm sure it is, but the problem is quality control so a specific link is greatly helpful.

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Re:Hacking an old Kindle to display bus arrival times by slig on Wednesday February 25, 2026 @05:26AM (#47149759)

Yeah, there's a ton of e-ink displays, most of them do not come with the controller or are replacement for kindle (how to drive those?) or are tiny.

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Re:Hacking an old Kindle to display bus arrival times by moffkalast on Wednesday February 25, 2026 @05:37AM (#47149831)

I'm afraid I can't really vouch for any specific one, it's been years since I've messed around with one and suppliers change their stock constantly.

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Re:Hacking an old Kindle to display bus arrival times by uyzstvqs on Tuesday February 24, 2026 @05:44PM (#47144445)

Can you start jailbreaking straight away, or does it require an internet connection and Amazon account first during setup?

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Re:Hacking an old Kindle to display bus arrival times by mengchengfeng on Tuesday February 24, 2026 @06:36PM (#47145116)

I don't believe you need internet connection - IRRC jailbreaking steps were plug in the Kindle, drop the jailbreak folder into the root directory, then choose `Update` from the Settings screen.

The hardest part was finding the `Update` menu item. It's only visible if you go to Settings, then press the menu button again while on the Settings page.

Not sure if registering the Kindle was required.

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Re:Hacking an old Kindle to display bus arrival times by simonklitj on Tuesday February 24, 2026 @07:10PM (#47145442)

Depends on the firmware of the device. Latest firmware (anything after version 5.18.5.01 - which released in October 2025) is currently not jailbreakable.

Jailbreak of any firmware after version 5.16.2.1.1 (June 2023) requires the Kindle to be connected and registered.

Anything prior to, and including this version, can be jailbroken with no registration.

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Re:Hacking an old Kindle to display bus arrival times by Havoc on Tuesday February 24, 2026 @07:17PM (#47145516)

Don’t connect it. I bought one for this purpose and it updated to a version that didn’t have a known jailbreak

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Re:Hacking an old Kindle to display bus arrival times by CTDOCodebases on Wednesday February 25, 2026 @06:51AM (#47150321)

There is also the Xteink4[0] that can be purchased on Aliexpress. It's just an ESP32 with an e-ink screen.

It costs more and is smaller but when you are done playing around with it you can flash it with Crosspoint[1], carry it in your pocket and read books on an e-ink display wherever you are.

[0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMoq17-1pJA [1] - https://github.com/crosspoint-reader/crosspoint-reader

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Re:Hacking an old Kindle to display bus arrival times by 0x38B on Wednesday February 25, 2026 @11:53PM (#47162026)

I have the same Kindle as the OP and very nearly bought the Xteink4. However, they wanted $28 to ship to Alaska, which put me off buying it; my Kindle Touch still works fine after many years and one battery replacement, though it's slow compared to newer E Ink devices.

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Re:Hacking an old Kindle to display bus arrival times by CTDOCodebases on Thursday February 26, 2026 @12:26AM (#47162225)

That sucks! Hopefully they start appearing on Amazon for similar prices.

I too have an old kindle but I just wanted something non-smartphone to help me read more.

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