this post was submitted on 13 Oct 2023
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When they say build it yourself, they mean it:
For those interested, base price to build this might start at $85 based on one estimate linked from the resource.
It’s crazy how subsidized a Kindle is. I recently paid 60€ on sale for a brand-new Paperwhite. That has a superior display, and requires no extra work. It’s even worse if you look at voice-assistants, On sale, you can probably get 3-4 echo dots for the price of the materials of a single self-built one…
Mass production does that.
It's not just mass production and economies of scale. That's obviously a huge part of it, but the cheap Kindle devices are also definitely sold at a loss with the expectation that you're going to buy a lot of ebooks from Amazon which will more than make up for it (and also some of the devices are ad supported).
...and we can be sure Amazon finds ways to monetize user data as well (they see your book purchases, downloads, reading habits, etc)
I don’t believe it’s to that level. Shitter pieces of hardware cost more on AliExpress.
and underpaid labor in asia
It's also the economy of scale. You get better prices when you're buying thousands of units.
Mass production. Plus ads on the Lock Screen. It’s $20 cheaper with the ads.
No ads. My kindle is too important for ads.
I keep mine in airplane mode most of the time to avoid getting new ads too often. Also the only ads are on the lock screen which is extremely unobtrusive if you're looking to save a few bucks
I really enjoy seeing my book cover on the lock screen ;) And just buy the kids version, it’s always ads free but costs the same as with ads.
Same as the paper white? I saw another commenter say the same. Indeed sounds like the move!
Yeah, it’s exactly the same model as the paper white. It’s been a common trick for a while now.
Call Amazon and say the content of the ads is offensive and say you want them to either remove the gambling and adult romance ads or remove it all if they can select. That worked for me and my wife.
The ads I see on my kindle lock screen all seem to be for garbage AI-generated books.
Only unobtrusive currently
Has been the same for many years. If they started popping up during reading or something I would not recommend at all of course. Wasn't worth $30 to me and I don't regret it so far these last few years (:
Right, but amazon also hasnt any reason to put pressure on yet. Wait till their profits start slowing
No doubt Amazon sells Kindles with a thin margin or maybe even at a loss. But the cost to produce them is also lowered significantly by manufacturing large quantities.
You mean the ad infested ebook reader that has less and less features with each version? Yeah sounds great. Buy a Kobo instead and host your own library with Calibre.
And doing so in a sweatshop somewhere cheap.
I mean those Echo Dots come with a huge hit to your privacy as a cost. Not to mention how susceptible the Echo Dot has been in the past. Hell some expeditious hackers even got the Echo Dot to hack itself.
As I said, subsidized. But luckily, Home Assistant finally added the last pieces I needed to make a second attempt at building my own. I have the microphones, an old PI3, and some cheap USB speakers to make a proof of concept, if everything works, I’ll get some Pi Zero 2’s or comparable devices, more speakers, and replace the Echo’s.
I installed that update just minutes ago! What are you using for your voice satellites?
As I said, PoC will be done with a Pi3 (which currently has Rhasspy installed from my last attempt :D), if everything works I’ll get Pi Zero2s or something similar.
I'd be interested in how well it turns out for you haha
Same ;) one thing that was a big issue with Rhasspy, was that I want to play the audio from the device I requested it from (though technically I could live with hard coding the audio player as I only need the kitchen to play music), I'll see how that works with ha.
That version is ad-sponsored though, isn't it? If you wanted to get it without ads, I believe you need to pay extra.
Nah, you buy the Kids version, it’s exactly the same as the normal version, besides a) no ads (but for the with ads price), b) free cover and c) You need to go into settings and exit child mode when you set it up.
You can ask customer service to remove it for free after purchase, or so I've heard.
I'm pretty sure it's a $30 dollar charge, from when I last looked into it. For that exact price difference you can get a Kobo, which isn't Amazon and doesn't have ads
If you want to just do it automatically through the settings or whatever, sure. But you can supposedly call up customer service, make up an excuse like the ads are inappropriate for your kid, and they will remove ads for no charge.
Sadly a Kobo doesn’t support my Kindle library without a good bit of extra steps that, from my experience, can wreck some books.
That's fair. Fwiw that's the main reason I tried to avoid kindle, so I would be able to take my library where i want and not be tied to Amazon
Yeah they usually won’t do this unless you’ve owned it for a while or purchased a considerable amount of content via the device. Also depends on how adamant you are about having them remove it.
You don’t need the know-how compile the firmware! It’s available to drag and drop from GitHub: https://github.com/nvts8a/libros
DIY is like that. If you look up how to make a birdhouse they will tell you you need a saw, a hammer, nails, drill, paintbrush and something to measure with. Having a 3d printer and a soldering iron nowadays is pretty low entry, you can get into it cheaper that buying the saw, hammer and drill for the birdhouse. You don't have to buy the bambulab printer and the weller / hakko iron. You can print this case on an ender 3 you found in the dumpster. Or pay 10 bucks for someone and they will print it for you. On the other hand you will have a device you can infinitely repair unlike the kindles that are kicking the dust every few year for everyone.
A friend of mine was showing me around a maker space when I was on a trip to where he now lives. They had an entire room full of various 3D printer. They've really gone mainstream in a big way. Getting a hold of one isn't out of the question for a lot of people.
Idk why everyone is even insisting on a 3d printed case, just cut a square hole in a cigar box. Done.
Shit, get a thick book nobody reads and cut the middle of the book out and house a screen inside the 📖 book, glue the pages on the outside together with some modge podge. Done for the price of a cheap novel with a hardcover and some glue and a knife if you don't have one.
Damn thank you for inspiring me, I saw the '3d print case' and was like ehh, but thinking about making a wood case for this sounds sick.
Heck, the Microcenter 15 minutes away from me has like a dozen different models to choose from nowadays
Is that $85 for all parts?
Calculate the extra cost if someone doesn't own a 3D printer (or doesn't have access to one) or soldering gear.
Right! I believe that assumes you already have necessary tools, and it certainly can't take into account the cost of your time or the cost of mistakes along the way.
Well, printing externally costs a few bucks so that is not really the problem here.
Soldering is more complicated but that's more a learning curve problem than an equipment problem.
As someone who has tried soldering with the wrong equipment (and thoroughly stuffed it up), it's both. Learning with the right equipment however is a lot easier than with the wrong stuff.
And 3D printing externally can also be a bit of a trial and error process if you're new to the whole thing.
In terms of 3D printing it depends a lot on the quality of the model (which usually is pretty good in projects like this, unlike some thingiverse models) and the quality of the printing service. A reputable service will basically always produce good results,only the hole in the wall private garage services are sometimes problematic from my experience.
With soldering you are absolutely correct, it is far easier to learn with more expensive equipment (but this is still far cheaper than 3D printing, decent soldering stations go for less than 120 bucks these days), but it's still comparably cheap - but not easy to master. Takes a lot of time.
It's a fair call from a practical point of view. But I'll also say you're very likely to keep using your 3d printer for all other things, so not fair to put all costs into this one project.
Besides there alternatives to buying the printer: friends and print shops. Besides where I live a few libraries let you use their printers (and I believe materials) at no cost.
I guess the E-Ink is 5"/6"? Because larger E-Ink get expensive.
Btw, E-Ink is the fallacy in openness there, because there's a monopolist who bought possible competition up.