I was a big fan of my RM2, but found the move to the subscription service a couple years ago to be off putting. Sure, I can turn off WiFi, or just use the network to ssh into it, but it felt less than great. I recently got a Supernote to replace it and so far love it. The company seems a bit more open and less likely to try to push me to some kind of subscription/cloud thing. They promote the “works great offline, no subscriptions” stuff right up front. Plus their pens are great - the one I got feels like a real pen.
>... but found the move to the subscription service a couple years ago to be off putting
This is so common these days. I'm still waiting for the PineNote to become stable enough to be usable by non developers. It's FOSS, so it would be immune from the subscription service plague, but they're progressing really slowly.
I'm exactly the same. I'd really like a large format e-ink reader for papers, notes etc. But at that point I don't want to pay for a closed-off locked-down device I can't control.
Undeniably so. But charging a subscription for what is essentially a product feels like extortion to the consumer.
If using a device incurs you maintenance costs, whether those are servers or engineers, then by all means, charge a subscription, and I'll happily pay for it if it's priced appropriately. If, on the other hand, my usage doesn't depend on a service you provide, but I'm paying for R&D of your next product, then politely bugger off.
Companies love the subscription model because it's mostly fixed recurring revenue, but this trend of making everything a subscription needs to stop.
I’ve come to the opinion that the classic “make a product, sell it once, make the next product” model has always been kind of a lie. History is littered with companies who made a great product, sold it, then went out of business because the next product couldn’t make enough money fast enough to sustain them.
Especially in tech, every “evergreen” product needs to have at least basic security updates over it’s lifetime, and most likely needs code updates to continue to work across generations. I also think recurring payments can be done in a way that respects user rights and without the draconian licensing that we are rightfully cautious of.
As an example: I have paid for a parcel tracking app on iOS for a few years now. It’s solid and reliable and does not chase features or try to be something flashy. It just works. In order to keep it working they need to spend money on servers to run the interfaces with the delivery companies, dev time updating those interfaces when the delivery companies change their apis/websites, dev time to keep the app in line with Apple’s expectations for each iOS version, and the yearly Apple fee. I pay $3 per year and I’m happy to pay it. I feel confident that the money goes towards those costs while also providing the reliability necessary to let the dev(s) stay focused on making the best most effective product.
If you have somewhere you can run a Docker container, just spin up an rmfakecloud server and ditch the company's network altogether. Works really well.
I’m really excited for the upcoming Supernote A5X2. So many smart and community-friendly decisions in the design and software. My reMarkable 2 is still holding up, but I’ll be giving it a close look when the time comes for a replacement.
End of Q1 2024, according to the Supernote website. Presumably it’s going to be very similar to the recently released A6X2, just larger. The specs are great (300dpi display and performance bumped SOC), the design is expandable and repairable (SD slot, replaceable battery, easy teardown), and the OS is based on Android (so you can install the Kindle app and more if you want).
I have never tried a RM product, but when I was originally searching for an e-paper tablet I passed over them in favor of the Supernote A5X and it has been great. The software has been continually improved since I got it, I don't regret the purchase at all. Once the A5X2 comes out I might upgrade, especially because, if my memory serves me, it should have a user-replaceable battery.
For this exact reason, I decided to instead buy Surface Pro 9 and installed Ubuntu Linux on it. It works amazingly well. Moreover, all my notes are automatically converted to PDF and syned to my gitlab.
I use this kernel, you can use this with most operating systems. Once things are setup, everything is extremely smooth.
I use xournal++ for note writing, and using GNOME is necessary. KDE doesn't have support for screen rotation etc. When you use GNOME, make sure to disable gestures and screen edge detection, because that might occasionally cause interfere with writing.
So, the workflow is quite simple with xournal++, you run a `inotify` based watched which automatically compiles and pushes stuff on every save. I of course assume that only `xournal++` on tab can change those handwritten notes. You can get some fancier git logic if needed. By putting the baselink as `https://gitlab.com/user/repo/-/jobs/artifacts/main/raw`, you can get the list of PDFs directly on readme of your git repo. pretty nifty for referring to later.
while inotifywait -e modify,create,delete,move $INPUT;
do
publish.script --input $INPUT --output $OUTPUT
done
# publish.script
pushd $INPUT
pushd $INPUT
printf "# Handwritten Notes\n\n" > readme.md
printf "| Index | Date | Title |\n" >> readme.md
printf "| --- | --- | --- |\n" >> readme.md
INDEX=0
for i in $(ls -r *.xopp); do
BASENAME=$(basename $i .xopp)
PDFNAME=$BASENAME.pdf
xournalpp --create-pdf=$OUTPUT/$PDFNAME $i
BASENAME=$(basename $i .xopp)
PDFNAME=$BASENAME.pdf
LINK=$BASELINK/$PDFNAME$SUFFIX
INDEX=$(( INDEX + 1))
DATE=$(echo ${BASENAME:0:10})
printf "| %d | %s | [%s](%s) |\n" $INDEX $DATE $BASENAME $LINK >> readme.md
done
if [[ $(git diff --stat) != '' ]]; then
git add .
git commit -m "$(date)"
git push
fi
popd
Since I am a happy user, I will mention rcu[1]. It is paid, but it makes remarkable more what it should have been ( no subs stuff ). To be fair, I never tried Supernote.
The RM homebrew community has answers for some of the problems the author poses. I haven't tried it personally, but there is a VNC package that will let you use your tablet as an auxiliary screen.
The hacking community is small but pretty dedicated. There's a few exciting projects in the works, like a complete desktop interface called Oxide.
The RM tablets are kinda neat in that you get root access out of the box. You have a lot of power to write or isntall custom software.
That said, Remarkable the company has been fairly shitty. They removed the links to the dev tools, and don't really respond to requests for source that they are obligated to release under the GPL in any reasonable time.
They also made the inexplicable decision to ship a keyboard case for the thing, but the only way their software supported it at launch was a fixed textbox in the middle of the screen. You couldn't move or resize it, so it was basically useless.
Fortunately, homebrew has your back. There's an app that just gives you a terminal with keyboard support. You can ssh to another machine or write in vi or whatever you do with a normal terminal
> That said, Remarkable the company has been fairly shitty. They removed the links to the dev tools, and don't really respond to requests for source that they are obligated to release under the GPL in any reasonable time.
I think it's important to note the wider limitations of the homebrew community. I bought an rM2 relatively early on, enough to have lifetime free subscription access that I've never used, as I've always used homebrew arrangements instead.
There is a definite sense that the community is tired and diminishing. I think most packages are only compatible with the at this point quite old v2 software version, including the entirety of the toltec system. Some of the most important hacks, ddvk's packages, are both stagnant and closed source, with hints that being closed source comes from direct threats from Remarkable, not hypothetical concern over legalities. Toltec's maintainers, and others, respond with suggestions that they're going to be updating at some point, and that users are just being impatient, but it seems more likely that much of the homebrew infrastructure at this point will not be moving forward. The homebrew community was once small but dedicated, now I think it would be more accurate to just call it small.
And I somewhat understand that. As much as it has its defenders, Remarkable has been at worst hostile, and at best unwittingly unhelpful. It often provides exactly what it thinks is legally required. V3 changed the format and system enough to break all homebrew software. Whether intentionally, or in response to a well meaning but enormously damaging user suggestion, Remarkable changed its kernel configuration in a very non-standard, non-recommended way with the only significant impact being to make compilation of modules impossible without entirely replacing the kernel (they did, after years, finally change this back). Kernel sources are available, but good luck compiling then. Does the keyboard case even work unless you're using V3, and this break everything homebrew, including that terminal? Remarkable seems like a textbook case of a company respecting the letter but not the spirit of free software. And that isn't even considering the dark patterns they have more generally: the intentionally non-standard USB C port so that third party keyboards that would otherwise work without any problems don't work, the wonky Ethernet-adapter behaviour rather than a virtual mass storage device, the tendency of the USB web interface to repeatedly turn off... there are justifications given for many of these, but as a whole they paint a problematic picture.
And so those of us who use our modified Remarkables increasingly, at this point, are just using devices frozen in time, with everything working for us.
3.x support will come to toltec, I've been blocked by stuff outside of my control a couple of times. Including things happening in my life that I won't get into.
I spent a lot of time looking for a digital notepad, and the RM2 was high up on my list. I ended up buying a Supernote recently for exactly the reasons you mention in your post. Remarkable just come across as a really shitty company with a really shitty (and inexplicable) approach to software for their platform.
> That said, Remarkable the company has been fairly shitty.
Except for the fact that they've released a product that you can do with what you will and use offline.
It seems most other products require you to create an account and log into someone's service to even use the device. They're so scared they can't monetize you!
I think the difference in opinions here is the feeling amongst those of us who don't particularly like Remarkable as a company that they do what they are legally required to do, based on the licences of the software they've used. To an extent, I think there's also the sense that the company may have, earlier on, been more open and supportive. Outside of the homebrew community, I think there's also the sense that, while they do technically have a product you can 'do with what you will and use offline', they have made doing so inconvenient.
It is difficult to interpret, for example, the repeated tendency of the USB interface to turn itself off in the settings as anything other than a dark pattern designed to make offline use for non-technical users inconvenient. The needlessly-browser-based interface that involves a fake ethernet adapter and additional private network is itself a dubious choice. For a device that markets itself as removing distractions, it creates distractions for someone trying to use it offline. This is even worse for non-technical users than those in the homebrew community.
There is, of course, always an excuse, always an explanation as to why these choices make sense, and anyone complaining is being unreasonable. But the combination of choices is frustrating and unlikely to generate much good will toward Remarkable.
Thanks for mentioning oxide :) kinda cool to see people find my stuff exciting.
As for the statement that they don't respond to requests for source that they are obligated to release. They have everything that they are obligated to release on GitHub, and they have always released updated toolchains (that include a bunch of source) when. requested of them. They have been kinda late with the latest request, so yes they aren't timely right now. I've been poking what contacts I have, but I think a bunch of people had some extended vacations around the holidays or something.
Hi Tom,
I'm a big fan of my rm2, too -- and am writing to respond to this:
> "I’d also love a more formal diary / daily entry system. Kind of like Obsidian’s daily notes. Some kind of date-based notebook inside the Remarkable would be rad (even if it doesn’t sync with your actual calendar!). A daily journaling / diary / planning format would be great. (Yes, right now you can select a day-planner template, but you can’t then see them in a calendar view - the date isn’t a foundational element of the note)."
Take a look at https://hyperpaper.me
which has been transformative for me. Instead of using a static background template, it generates a (customizable) interactive PDF. This -- crucially -- means it supports navigation, eg jump from the month calendar view to your daily note page.
There's also https://recalendar.me/ that does something similar and is open source. It does struggle with larger documents, but everything happens locally.
There is Goodnotes, which supports such functionality for PDFs. I’ve purchased such PDFs (bullet journal calendar/notes) and, without trying it, I think it a safe assumption that Goodnotes could consume what is generated by the Hyperpaper link above.
It'll work just fine on an iPad, several folks are doing so (Goodnotes and Notability are the most common apps people use for loading and annotating the pdf). I've done a little work towards color themes to better support the iPad, but for now it's just black & white since most customers use eInk tablets.
Such incredible ergonomics wasted by poor software.
It could be such an impressive device with some extensions (not even apps) marketplace.
I don’t want it to be another tablet with YouTube but I want to be able to scribble on my daily calendar and boom, with OCR it’s now on my caldav. I want to be able to make LINKS between pages. Like, let me write an index. Let me write summaries. Let me receive and send emails.
I agree with the design choice that remarkable is just a digital notebook and not another generic device. But I do believe that a digital notebook can be smarter than a piece of paper.
I had a similar experience. When I had one, I used it frequently but when I lost it, I never felt inclined to buy a replacement. I never loved it.
I feel that this _type_ of device may have a mass-market future but we are a few generations away from a device which could have mass-market appeal. The software is clearly not good enough but even in terms of hardware, the slow e-ink refresh rate makes for a painful UX. So despite all the technology, doing anything more than using it as an etch-a-sketch was irritating.
Also what I came to realise is that most of the stuff that I fill the many half-used notebooks lying about my home is of very temporary value - often only useful for an hour or a a day. When I switched to using the Remarkable, the issue of losing information went away but not in a good way; I now felt burdened with keeping the Remarkable "organised" - trying to categorize pages, de-duplicating notes, "garbage collecting", etc. Paper notebooks, which you fill and toss away don't burden you with this task.
I really liked my remarkable2, but I eventually got the issue where it just stops charging and now it's effectively a brick. Tried all the known workarounds I could find with trickle-charging etc. Someone had tracked the issue down to a malfunctioning temperature sensor preventing charging but I have no idea if that's the problem with mine.
Remarkable support would like me to create videos showing every workaround I tried and I'm not totally convinced anything will happen if I do that... (seems like others jumped through those hoops without any success.)
It's a bummer because besides the annoying push to the cloud recently I really liked the device.
The issue is actually that your usb-c receptacle broke free from the PCB inside. Open and you'll see. I emailed them about it a while ago. They majorly fucked up the design. The connector is on the very edge of a very thin finger of a thin PCB. There is nothing holding it to the case, only the few solder points to a thin PCB. They did not care. I sent photos, explanation, and a rather long essay as to why this should never be done on a product that expects contact with the real world, and how it should be done.
I'll try to dig up my photos and post them here. It is a pathologically bad design.
I fixed mine by replacing the usb C socket, adding a few blobs of epoxy to hold it, and wiring the USB data and power lines across the cracks in the PCB
the video in there, via microscope, you can see how the contacts peeled off. Larger photos show the PCB and how the connector is "affixed". Final photo is after it was fixed, but before the epoxy
Thanks for sharing that. It's disappointing to hear, but that makes sense. (Edit: your analysis makes sense, not remarkable's response to it...) I'm hopeful it can be repaired. (But not by me!)
> There is nothing holding it to the case, only the few solder points to a thin PCB. They did not care.
Which is more plausible: that a company infamous for its shitty warranty/return policies accidentally/incompetently designed the USB connector to have weak physical support, or purposefully designed it to be weak so that people would be forced to keep buying replacements?
I am unprepared to claim malice here since I do not have enough information, and I would not levy an accusation like than without more evidence than I have. But it definitely is obvious to anyone who has ever made anything that real humans really use in the real world that this is a poor way to affix a USB-C connector if you intend for it to last
I’ve worked at companies that ostensibly sell a hardware thing, and that thing was very poorly designed. It had everything to do with a combination of inexperience, hubris, and sloppiness, and absolutely nothing to do with malice. Some places are likely evil, but others are just dumb.
> Remarkable support would like me to create videos showing every workaround I tried
I had the same issue, they asked me to try 3-4 things that each took some time,, like “charge on a slow charger for 12 hours”. When I didn’t respond on my support ticket within something like 48 hours, they silently closed it and never responded again.
When I opened a new case they invariably asked me to try and video the same things again.
Which reminds me, I was lucky enough to buy the stupid thing in a physical store, and have a couple months left to give it back to them. I should do that…
I got an RM2 last year, and it's been the only product I've ever used a satisfaction guarantee on to return. I was looking to replace paper, which is basically always around my desk in sticky note or free-relator-notepad form.
The RM2 didn't have a great way to just give me a blank note right away. It had the quick notes journal, but that was still its own notepad you had to open up. Everything was slow to get to. A physical button, screen clear, start writing. That's what I was hoping for.
The lack of a backlight was surprising, it's easy enough to turn on a light, but when everything else seems to have one, it was a little annoying to have to turn it towards a window to read a note because it's a little later towards dusk.
The note parsing was unforgivable, literally writing a whole new page rather than indexing your own handwriting. Search was abysmal, since it only seems to search these notes that have been transcribed, and turned into a new page of just text.
It's a lot closer to an e-ink typewriter. I think they should market it like that. Had a lot of trouble using it as a notebook. (YMMV, I know a lot of people love it, though they tend to replace the software on it.)
This is common across electronic notepads. The lighting adds a thickness to the screen that would mean the input device would hover over the “paper”, instead of writing directly on it, which would be offputting.
The things that stop me from buying a Remarkable or any similar products are:
* Too expensive. I want to have one everywhere in my house, all wirelessly connected so I can just pick one up and scribble a note anywhere. I may carry one also, but mostly I'd rather have something I treat as paper and keep them handy to places I frequent.
* Stores data in the cloud. I want to create personal notes, I do not want to share my personal notes with a cloud.
* Wireless sync is not trivially easy. I should not need to manually sync it, configure it for a wireless network, connect it to the internet, or make backups, or manage the network, or manage the device.
* Good organizational software for the notes. Many ways to sort notes/drawings, ways to search them, writing-to-text converters, drawing recognizers, all local and protected by good default encryption.
If you're going to replace paper in my life, it's got to be as ubiquitous and easy to use as paper, as reliable, and offer advanced features as well. Otherwise it's an unnecessary expense that is more difficult to use and requires maintenance time.
> * Good organizational software for the notes. Many ways to sort notes/drawings, ways to search them, writing-to-text converters, drawing recognizers, all local and protected by good default encryption.
A love-child of Obsidian and OneNote would be my dream.
Obsidian does the text bits just like I want it, it's mostly just standard markdown with frontmatter and a few plugins that do fancy stuff (like dataview)
Canvas lets me make fancy displays of stuff like RPG character sheets.
But what's missing is the ability to just freeform write/draw with a stylus. ReMarkable could be the tool for that, but I don't see it happening.
I love my RM2 for the incredible hardware and the very good "paper like" experience.
Reading and annotations of PDF is really great.
But as other have said, I would not recommend it because the software is quite "user hostile". It could be so great with a little bit more freedom, but now it is quite expensive for what it is.
For example, easy sharing or loading and "copy/paste" with copy are probably one of the main thing that anyone would want to do. But for that, the only solution, and not very convenient is to use shitty things with the premium subscription.
Why isn't there an easy permanent and public way to load and unload documents?
There is a very very shitty kind of web browser "web interface" that is available, but it will only work when connected to a computer through "usb", and each time usb cable is unplugged, you would have to re-enable the feature.
I hate that soo so much.
People write about Remarkable like about hardware company but my impression is that it's a very small venture, and pushing out RM2 took their strength financially. Preorders in 2017, released in 2020, and all they could do since is release a keyboard cover. The software is really restricted, updates abysmal, stillnbugs left. Most things come from the small diehard fanbase. Their edge is that somehow nobody really attempted to create a true competitor - there are epaper tablets with pens, but not with this quality or services. The industry kind of hates epaper. Pebble - a company that had much better relation to its community, and a larger portfolio of products - couldn't make it, I don't see how they could.
I would love something like the Remarkable tablet. However I'm not buying a niche hardware product to have my data held hostage by monthly cloud sync fees. Let me use Nextcloud or a service I've already paid for.
The cloud is optional and you have a root SSH access to the tablet. It's possible to impl. your own service for syncing or just sync via SSH with scripts.
You can self-host rmfakecloud, an open-source reimplementation of the reMarkable cloud. You just ssh into the device and use a DNS trick to swap it out.
1- My desk was always covered in paper and I hated the mess. On this point, I am 110% satisfied. My desk is super clean.
2- I found it very hard to keep track of multiple projects, or discussions across notebooks, or pages in a notebook. On this I am still not quite there. It's better for sure but I really want to search for people, dates, or keywords, rather than being super careful and organised with folders and notebooks for every conversation, which then gets too messy.
The benefit of root access to the device be default is that I can build what I need. In the two weeks I've had the device, I've been able to automate finding my device on the network, syncing my notes, converting them to non-proprietary files and OCRing them. The next step is to implement nicer search and discovery UI which admittedly is a bigger challenge.
I love my reMarkable 2. I use it daily. It helps so much with productivity, and it’s a UX delight.
That said, the company has made some remarkably (sorry) user-hostile and concerning decisions. In particular, two things. First, they tried to paywall a bunch of important features behind an expensive subscription service. They rolled back the worst changes after a backlash, but damage done.
Second, they’ve been aggressively marketing the RM2 tablet, even though it’s outdated 4-year-old hardware. They hired some YouTube influencers to put out paid promotions disguised as reviews, and now they’re trying a big push in India. My assumption is that new hardware is imminent (it really has to be), so they’re using these underhanded tactics to dump inventory and have return periods expire before the new release.
The RM2 is a great device, but it only does a few things, but does them very well. Notetaking/PDF annotation is excellent. They recently added a type cover and are continually adding text editing features.
Their desktop app and their whole cloud sync is absolute trash. Uploading documents is basic, but it works.
It's a perfect device for a grade schooler, I got one for my wife but my 7yo eventually took it over. It has just enough tech to be able draw, take notes, read e-books/PDFs, and recently, write documents/stories on.
There are sellers on Etsy that make Remarkable templates (ex, navigable daily planner with monthly/weekly views). I've been using one for years. They will customize if you ask nicely...
I love the hardware and the feel but the software is terrible and the difficulty of putting templates on the device (you hack around and use ssh to copy a file in) really limits the usefulness. The subscription model is also pushed heavy with basic functionality you would expect not working unless you pay. Overall I regret buying one and I almost never use it.
Soon after Remarkable 2 was released, a hacked version of Remarkable 1 was released that added pretty much all the feature upgrades. You needed to buy a new stylus (to use the new eraser end), but you could choose from dozens of brands since it's a widely used standard. The hardware looks slightly different and might have clock speed differences, but is essentially identical. And you don't have to deal with the silly subscription model of the 2. I use it to jot my thoughts down on PDFs in direct sunlight at the park. My macbook/ipad is pretty unusable in sunlight, unless you like squinting and straining. I also bought a smaller Mobiscribe (same thing but small), but I prefer the Remarkable still.
They release software updates for both devices at the same time. There was no hacked version with all the same feature upgrades, it was, and always has been the official software update. They to this day still release all the same features to both devices.
I really want to buy one of these eInk tablets but the thing that holds me back is I want seamless sync of my notes and pdfs with something like OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox - whatever. I don’t want to be constantly emailing myself files
Remarkable has that built in. They offer their own cloud service that makes it trivial to sync your files.
My flow is:
1. (Optional) Upload something on Google drive.
2. Copy it on remarkable. It syncs automatically on cloud.
3. Edit as I wish.
4. Upload final copy to Google Drive
I loved my RM2 but the pencil broke and without a warranty, it felt hard pressed to by another one. I replaced tips regularly, but the "tip-holding" piece shifted so it couldn't be reliably used any more. I wonder if any other folks hit this or if I just had a one-offf bad experience?
I found about these new tablets shortly after buying an iPad mini.
As much as I’d love to have an e-ink device, I don’t regret my purchase because you cannot yet plug those devices directly to a screen using a usb-c connector
I think calibre will do what you want. Convert to pdf because epub on remarkable2 is significantly slower. You will want to tweak your pdf conversion settings to get the font sized for easy reading.
I use calibre for managing my ebooks, syncthing for transfer and koreader to read them. I removed the DRM from buyed books, since koreader can't decrypt them.
In today's attention economy and digital distraction landscape, the appeal of this product is in what it can't do and doesn't have. There's no web browser to get distracted with Reddit/HN on, there's no Facebook/TikTok/Instagram/YouTube app to doomscroll and waste away time with. it's a digital piece of paper, without the distractions of candy crush.
When you open a new tab in your browser, what do you get? This gives you a blank piece of paper to draw on. A blank canvas of infinite possibility, not suggestions from the latest news.
It’s kind of sad that the only way to get control over our devices is to buy one with such limited functionalities. Personally I don’t have the budget for an iPad and a remarkable so I prefer cutting off all socials and wasted time on websites and enjoy the iPad with all its potential
It was a legitimate question. I saw the price of the last remarkable and its pricetag is quite high compared to an iPad. Given the context in which I use tablets, 2 weeks battery seems not that important to me given all the things the iPad can do and Remarkable can’t.
It is positively bizarre that HN will scream blue bloody murder about "the apple tax", "apple spying", "poor repairability" and so on, and yet cannot shut up about a device that:
* REQUIRES a cloud subscription and active data connection to do its most core functionality: OCRing text you write on it
* costs more after a year or two than an iPad with Apple Pencil
* is completely unrepairable; no parts availability, no service options, etc and has no warranty unless you pay extra
* depends on a cloud service run by a company located in a country infamous for both state and commercial espionage and intellectual property theft
* has no theft protection, no on-device encryption, no end-to-end encryption, etc.
An iPad can do everything the Remarkable can do, on device, no connection or cloud sync/service required, has infinitely larger accessory and software ecosystem, can be repaired at almost any corner phone repair shop and major electronic store chains, and has best-in-market security from the hardware itself to end-to-end encryption for its built-in cloud sync functionality.
This device allows you to do all your work offline. You do not need an account to use it. You can ssh into it. You don't have to ask permission to transfer files to/from the device.
This device is the WORST e-reader... except for all the rest.
What about Supernote or Kindle Scribe, are they worse? I am considering RM2 but some recommend Supernote. The company looks shady as heck but hackability would be a big pro
