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Kindle Side Card
Turn an old Kindle into a local e-ink side display
Open-source local-first dashboard for jailbroken Kindles. A Python daemon renders a Kindle-native PNG; KUAL pulls it over Wi-Fi and paints it with eips. Built for slow, glanceable status, not another browser tab.
I built this because a browser dashboard is still a browser: bright, interactive, and one click away from another tab. Kindle Side Card is intentionally weaker. It uses slow e-ink for ambient state like todos, system status, AI usage gauges, calendar snippets, messages, PR queues, and notes.
It is experimental: PW1 / 5th gen is the first tested target, jailbreak + KUAL are required, and the current visuals are renderer-generated until real device photos come in.
GitHub: https://github.com/perduewu-ops/...
The strongest signal so far is not Product Hunt yet, it is Reddit: the r/eink post hit about 8.8K views and the first real question was basically, "can I use my old Kindles instead of paying for TRMNL?"
That is exactly the wedge. Kindle Side Card is still experimental, but the architecture is deliberately boring: host renders a PNG, Kindle fetches it over local Wi-Fi, KUAL/eips paints it.
Slow, local, useful.
Concrete workflow: put an old Kindle next to your main monitor and use it as the “what should I look at next?” screen.
For me the useful version is not a pretty dashboard. It is a quiet status card for today’s focus item, the next calendar block, waiting PRs, unread message count, local build status, and AI agent/token status.
That is the whole point: visible enough to keep you oriented, too slow and weak to become another distraction.
If you have a jailbreakable Kindle in a drawer, try the GitHub repo and star/watch it if you want more Kindle models and widgets supported: https://github.com/perduewu-ops/...
About Kindle Side Card on Product Hunt
“Turn an old Kindle into a local e-ink side display”
Kindle Side Card was submitted on Product Hunt and earned 3 upvotes and 3 comments, placing #95 on the daily leaderboard. Open-source local-first dashboard for jailbroken Kindles. A Python daemon renders a Kindle-native PNG; KUAL pulls it over Wi-Fi and paints it with eips. Built for slow, glanceable status, not another browser tab.
Kindle Side Card was featured in Productivity (653.9k followers) and GitHub (41.3k followers) on Product Hunt. Together, these topics include over 162.6k products, making this a competitive space to launch in.
Who hunted Kindle Side Card?
Kindle Side Card was hunted by Callan. A “hunter” on Product Hunt is the community member who submits a product to the platform — uploading the images, the link, and tagging the makers behind it. Hunters typically write the first comment explaining why a product is worth attention, and their followers are notified the moment they post. Around 79% of featured launches on Product Hunt are self-hunted by their makers, but a well-known hunter still acts as a signal of quality to the rest of the community. See the full all-time top hunters leaderboard to discover who is shaping the Product Hunt ecosystem.
Want to see how Kindle Side Card stacked up against nearby launches in real time? Check out the live launch dashboard for upvote speed charts, proximity comparisons, and more analytics.
Callan