Someone connected a Raspberry Pi 4B to an old, unsupported Kindle, and now it’s an e-ink dashboard

Back in May, Amazon officially cut support for its older Kindle models, preventing them from using the official store. While some people have found new uses for them, one person has had the brilliant idea of attaching a Raspberry Pi 4 to it. The result is a cool e-ink dashboard that re-uses the perfectly good Kindle tech.

The Kindle Carousel gives your old device a new life with a Pi

Don’t throw out that old e-reader just yet

Over on the Raspberry Pi subreddit, user Qadzek gave us a peek at the Kindle Carousel. This turns a 2011 Kindle into an interactive e-ink dashboard you can tinker with to your heart’s content. To ensure everything runs smoothly, Qadzek used a Raspberry Pi 4B to enhance its abilities:

The Raspberry Pi runs two parts: a web server hosting the web apps (news, weather, calendar, anything you build), and a Node.js tool that screenshots them, as this Kindle is too weak to run a browser. On the Kindle side, a Python app downloads the screenshots on a schedule and displays them.

When you want to change apps or browse between pages, you can use the physical buttons on the Kindle itself to move around. It essentially turns your Kindle into a big e-ink display for your projects, which is a lot more fun than letting your device gather dust in a drawer somewhere.

You can check out how to make your own over on the Kindle Carousel GitHub page. You do need quite a bit of setup to get this project off the ground, though. Obviously, a Kindle is required, but it also needs to be jailbroken. You then need your Raspberry Pi to run as a server, but you can also use a Virtual Private Server (VPS) in the cloud if you want. Then, you need a stable Wi-Fi connection to your Kindle’s location. If you can tick all those boxes, then Kindle Carousel can give your Kindle a new lease on life.