Reviving a four year old reMarkable 2

> Maybe other tablets are like that too, to be honest I'm too poor to swing the 700-1000$ for what I can cover with an paper note pad (with the bonus of being able to comfortably sit my coffee cup on it, use any pen or pencil, rip pages out, drop it, forget it somewhere, etc etc) to buy one but at least it seems like a product I would support.

I have good news: they (RM2s) are often available on ebay for much less. People buy them thinking they're getting something like an android tablet, but they do nothing out of the box apart from showing docs and taking notes. Sometimes they're returned immediately for a full refund, but often they sit in a drawer, untouched, till they get offloaded on ebay for - comparatively - peanuts, letting us scoop them up and breathe new life into them (koreader rocks, to start with).

"They" is not reMarkable AS. remarkable.guide is a community project.

I have a Kobo that was kept unused in a similar state for a few years until I decide to build an SDK platform to develop and deploy apps on it. My Kobo does not support apps on its Linux platform.

I have been using it to read HN, as an RSS reader over my news and blog sources, generate audiobooks on topics I want to understand with ElevenLabs, Exa and OpenAI and listen via connecting its bluetooth to my speakers and even as a remote Claude Code & Codex approval sidekick.

It is amazing that a $100 device with a single core and 512mb RAM can do so much and run for so long.

Here is the open-sourced platform https://github.com/BandarLabs/Cobalt

There is indeed a "USB web interface" toggle under Storage. I've added a note in the final section, thanks.

Someone on Reddit also pointed out there is a support page for the clock issue https://support.remarkable.com/s/article/Unable-to-update-re...

reManager is far better for this use-case [0] instead of these fragile scripts.

[0] https://github.com/rmitchellscott/reManager

Yeah it's kind of comical the framing is that a device needs to be "revived" after four years. As SWEs we should probably all be a bit embarrassed for our trade, even in the alleged golden era of LLM induced productivity.

I have all sorts of offline digital&analog mechanical/optical devices which just work decades and decades later. The weak point in any of my old tech is when theres a software component that needs to be reverse engineered and ported across multiple generations of CPU architecture / OS / API deprecations.

I have 60 year old records, 35 year old CDs, 25 year old minidiscs that all still work fine. Properly developed film negatives are still fine decades later.

Despite all the warnings about media impermanence and lifespans, it's always the software that screws it up first. I've lost more content from digital / streaming services because it simply vanishes than because a piece of physical media failed.

That was my initial reaction as well, when I first found the device not being able to update. But look what was the saving grace: SSH/USB/HTTP/Unix with root access, instead of closed systems, hardware that you own 100%.

As software is increasingly "solved" by AI I think this is what will become most important

I think you're right, the ending is a bit abrupt. Added a closing paragraph to the last section, thanks for pointing that out.

As did the reMarkable support for that device...

> woah 4 years is considered obsolete?

No, this device was only discontinued this year, you can still buy accessories and it still receives software updates.

It just turns out their software has flaws that break the update process after a few years of sitting unused. Not great, but luckily there are workarounds, as this article walks you through.

Where is is obsolete? It's still receiving software updates and likely to for at least 3-4 years. Even after that it's not going to magically brick itself

LOL - agreed. I was a bit shocked by the title being the type that gets bonded with my devices. I still use my Windows laptop from 2017 and my M1 Macbook Pro from 2021 daily. Additionally, my Kindles are from 2010.

Next up, "reviving my paper notes from 40 years ago". Oh wait, there's nothing that I need to do, they still all work fine.

It barely has enough power to render PDFs, I'm not sure what general purpose use you could get out of it.

The limitation is the whole point, it does pen input very well.

What exactly is a "general purpose device"? An eInk tablet is pretty far away from being "general purpose" as far as I can tell. Should I buy a Ford Ranger and demand that the company makes it easy to convert it to a lawn mover?

I don’t use a remarkable but use an ipad and stylus for note taking a lot, so can totally get why people like remarkable even though I what I do is better for me[1]. The reasons for me:

1) I had a ton of paper notes, looking back, curating, finding old things etc is really hard.

2) An electronic device gives you the ability to cut and paste, move things around on the page, resize stuff, drop in screenshots (so I often screenshot a page of something I’m reading, drop it into a note and annotate it or make my notes about it all around the original) and (best of all) infinite erase with no skank left behind on the page and no surrounding myself with tiny little bits of eraser to clean up.

3) I have all my notes with me on my device even ones I made years ago vs in my study I have box folders and notebooks full of notes filling cabinet after cabinet, I couldn’t possibly carry all that around with me.

1 and 3 are nice, 2 is the killer app. Once I made the switch I find it painfully limiting to go back to having to make notes on paper.

[1] My system in case people are interested is Notability and a paperlike screen protector. It is fantastic. All notes back up automatically as pdfs in box (which I then copy to my linux laptop) and I can search them using AI just fine even though I’m writing equations and my handwriting is god-awful. The notes are all pdf so if notability gets bought out and becomes terrible I just drop it like a hot potato and move on to something else no loss of notes. I tried a colleagues RM2 and the screen didn’t feel as nice to write on as my paperlike screen protector. I also found the latency distracting - I couldn’t write as fast as I would like to.

Pencil and paper are very definitely better, until you need to carry them around or search through them.

The ease of filing/retrieving across a lot of notes is a huge advantage. Also the amount you can have with you. The sheer weight of paper is a huge pain. With this you can carry hundreds of books and search the notes you scribbled in the margins.

Because the fact that it is a tech gadget makes me more likely to write stuff down instead of believing I can remember everything. That’s about it , at least for my use case

i’ll address this as if it was a genuine question.

my handwriting is awful, not to mention that my physical notebook management is awful. i’ve considered a supernote nomad as a way to streamline some of those issues. theyre just so expensive that i cant really justify a $500 experiment.

Paper is great for notes, bad at rendering arXiv

Why didn't you write that comment on a piece of paper instead?

The tablet stopped being able to update just from sitting unused for a few years. That really decreases my faith, at least in reMarkable.

On a remarkable, or other tablet? Sounds like a software issue, there's no reason for that to happen in 2026.