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This is only a "fun project". I had an old Kindle Touch (K5) which I wanted to turn into a table top weather station, or just use it as a LabVIEW remote display via browser.
(Something similar as done here: https://mpetroff.net/2012/09/kindle-weather-display/ )
I also got the very nice vector graphic weather icons from the above website, and I have converted these svg files into png images using Inkscape. Then these icons were used to construct the Picture rings.
As a starting point, I used the following example: "Web Services - Auto refresh images" ( https://decibel.ni.com/content/docs/DOC-42877 )
So this project can be altered even to show numeric indicators, gauges, graphs, etc. from LabVIEW to the Kindle screen. Actually this e-ink display performs quite good, no flashing effect despite we send a full screen image at a rate of 2 Hz (I guess the Kindle is intelligent enough not to update those pixels which did not change status since the last image was sent). I used a TAB control in order to accommodate everything I want to send to the Kindle's screen using WebService.
Follow the steps below to try this example in any browser:
- Unzip the project, and observe the following files:
- main.vi: Register for a free Wunderground key, and set "Key ID" string field to this value ( http://www.wunderground.com/weather/api/d/docs?d=index )
- Wunderground_parser.vi: edit the string constant to get weather data for your country&city.
- index.js JavaScript file (\Public Content\js): here you can modify the web page update rate (recently 500 msec). I had a strange bug with the Kindle browser, after a few minutes the built-in Kindle browser (and the KUAL extension browser too) just quit. I searched for possible reasons, and I have found something related to the function "getTime()". It is not really clear to me why this function crashes the Kindle browser, but I fixed this by using the "getSeconds()" function instead...
- Build and run the executable (or alternatively Start the WebService ("Image Publisher") from the project tree, and launch the main.vi)
- Test the result in the same PC using the following local address: http://127.0.0.1:8001/image_publisher/
Get full screen browser on your Kindle Touch (K5):
- Disclaimer: if you brick your device, it is not my responsibility!
- I decided to use an older Kindle K5 (my firmware is: 5.3.7.3) since it is easier to jailbreak and hack compared to new Kindle models (also got it cheap from ebay
) - Description from here: http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/K5_Index
- Jailbrake device: http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?p=2169819#post2169819
- Restart (reboot) device (NOT reset!)
- AFTER jailbreak, install KUAL: http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=203326 (copied "KUAL-KDK-2.0.azw2" into Documents folder on Kindle in my case)
- Restart device
- Copy the WebLaunch extension into the KUAL extension folder (\extensions\) on the Kindle: http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=210210
- Edit the "settings.js" file in the Kindle folder: "\extensions\WebLaunch\". Check what is the local IP address of your web service (your PC in your local network), and set it accordingly, in my case for example: "http://192.168.2.27:8001/image_publisher/"
- Now you can launch a full screen browser from your Kindle!
- Disable screen saver: Type "~ds" into the search bar and enter ( http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Kindle_Touch_Hacking#Useful_hidden_functionality ). Device reboot enables screen saver again.
- For extended usage, plug a charger into your Kindle, I can imagine the always running WIFI can strongly impact its battery life. Would be beneficial to get ssh access to the device, and setup a Kron task on the Kindle, to turn on the wifi only temporary in order to save battery life. Since i am a noob for linux, i did not try to go this way (neither wanted more hacking steps, the above list was really enough just to get full screen browser)...
Pictures:
