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.
What software do you use for the note taking? On Windows there seemed to be OneNote (and nothing else) and on Linux xournal++.
Sorry for all the questions, but I am currently looking for a new laptop/tablet and thought I'd ask for experiences of others.
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.
There's an incredible amount of clarity and focus around the device, which lends itself to productivity and mindful relaxation.
The e-ink screen is brilliant and non-taxing, too. And the battery lasts forever.
(I have both)
> "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.
Happy to answer any questions, and thanks chrisweekly for the kind words and shoutout
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
Which project did they not release GPL'd code for? They do have the kernel source available: https://github.com/reMarkable/linux/tree/zero-sugar
The top level github page also lists their trees for other projects.
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.
You can see the current progress here: https://github.com/toltec-dev/toltec/issues/820
As for the comment on the kernel change, that was actually an ask by someone in the community: https://github.com/reMarkable/linux/issues/8
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!
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.
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.
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.
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
EDIT https://photos.app.goo.gl/eu4P8fnaNtV9vhMo7
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
something like this: https://pakshwe.com/product/type-c-bottom-left-top-right-sid...
Otherwise there are magnetic usb adapters that let you charge or transfer data with a cable still... while avoiding plug fatigue.
> 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 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 buy physical books and then get digital copies from Zlib (if publisher doesn't offer digital downloads that is...)
You can also just use Google Drive or SSH to copy books from another device like Kindle, Android, or a laptop.
* 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.
For me, that’s what I like about my Remarkable.
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 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.
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.)
Everything was clunky. Back to my notepads!
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.
* 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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
It is pricey but seems to have all the needed functionality, specifically; the large 14.6 inch screen helps you deal with A4 size properly.
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
