alt Hacker NewsFor the unaware, there is an existing solution that integrates with Kobo's native software (Nickel).
It has been maintained for years, and it supports every Kobo AFAIK.
It's called NickelMenu, and it's great. I'm in the Kobo ecosystem because of NickelMenu and Plato.
One note if you're thinking about getting a kobo due its relative openness: consider getting a two-core device. I did not do my homework and got a Clara BW because I don't want the color display. Later I found out that color is the only one with the two-core CPU.
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Is there any way to recover a "bricked" Clara color? I bricked mine while trying to install nickel and koreader. Haven't been able to recover it since.
I haven’t had a chance to compare side by side, but people say that if you primarily read books/prose, the BW version is better because the screen is more crisp compared to the color version, which is still a bit blurry when you read books. That’s why I ordered BW. Did anyone compare these two side by side in real life for simple text?
but also note that a color e-reader will have significantly worse contrast than a black and white model, which negates the usefulness of the device to people like me.
What does the two-core CPU get you? I'm very satisfied with my BW with KOReader, haven't noticed any shortcomings but I only read books on it.
Also NickelHook, which adds the native hooks into the Nickel application. I used it for intercepting http calls previously
I also have the Clara BW and haven't done any modding on it but it's been on my todo list. Would you be willing to briefly describe issues you've run into with it?
Are there any writing apps? Any way to connect a Bluetooth keyboard? (Or USB)
Apparently the "Sage" (which is what I have currently) has a quad-core, but Kobo discontinued it. Sigh, too bad - this was my favourite to-date (needs a power-cover though...).
Hey, author here. NickelMenu is terrific and Cobalt uses it to show the menu item in the default Kobo menu. It's just that Cobalt and NickelMenu are not the same in terms of project goals.
I created this as I could not find anything existing that gives the capabilities I wanted. I read several things downloaded over web apart from books on my Mac and phone, which I would prefer to do on an eInk display. Search papers on arxiv and read them offline later, Substack, even spending a lot of time on chess puzzles, monitor my Claude/Codex remotely, generate explainer audiobooks and listen to them on my bluetooth speaker etc.
The longer battery and the display makes some use cases really shine and I wanted to create apps for my own Kobo and potentially helpful for others as well.