Spiros Bond's FlickBook Firmware Turns Soldered Electronics's InkPlate 6 Flick into a DIY eReader
Smart Espressif ESP32-powered ePaper display, originally designed for commercial eReaders, returns once more to electronic book work.
Electronics and software engineer Spiros "Bond" Bontomitsidis has designed an open source eBook reader firmware for the Soldered Electronics InkPlate 6 Flick ePaper display: the FlickBook.
"FlickBook [lets you] build your own fully-featured eBook reader from scratch using an InkPlate 6 Flick development board," Bond explains of the device. "This project delivers native EPUB parsing, gesture-based navigation, battery-powered operation, and complete library management — all with open-source hardware and software! The goal of this project was to create a truly open and customizable eBook reader that rivals commercial devices while remaining completely hackable and modifiable. Unlike proprietary e-readers that lock you into specific ecosystems, this DIY solution gives you complete control over your digital library and reading experience."
The heart of the project is the Soldered Electronics InkPlate 6 Flick, which pairs upcycled touchscreen ePaper displays with Espressif ESP32 microcontrollers to create customizable smart displays. Bond's custom firmware, meanwhile, is tailored specifically for use as an eReader — delivering native support for library management and parsing of EPUB-format electronic books stored on microSD, gesture-based navigation, progress tracking, light and dark modes, and low-power operation good for over a week of continuous use per charge. This latter is aided by the fact that electrophoretic ePaper displays need power only when changing state, unlike constantly-refreshing liquid crystal displays (LCDs).
The trade-off with ePaper displays is a relatively slow refresh rate, though Bond estimates page-turn refreshes at under a second on the FlickBook. They're easily readable in bright sunlight, but their reflective nature means that they become harder to see the darker it gets — which the InkPlate 6 Flick solves with front lighting system, adjustable in Bond's firmware for 64 levels of brightness. When the battery does run low, it can be charged via USB Type-C — and a real-time display lets you know when it's time to plug the FlickBook in.
More information on the project is available on GitHub, where you'll also find the source code under the permissive MIT license.