Build log · 4.26-inch e-ink reader
OnePage · 壹頁
OnePage — a little e-reader I’m building for myself.
OnePage · 壹頁 — seen edge-on. It’s genuinely thin.
The object
Built to be held, not just used.
An aluminium mid-frame between a white front and a white acrylic back. Light, flat, quiet in the hand — it should feel like a notebook you keep, not a gadget you charge.
- Aluminium mid-frame
- A thin milled frame carries the structure and the keys, and gives it a flat, sturdy edge.
- White front
- A clean white face around the e-ink screen. Narrow bezels, nothing blinking back at you.
- White acrylic back
- A smooth white acrylic shell — warm to hold, and quietly unlike the usual black slab.
Renders
A first look at the design.
01 / 05
Genuinely thin
Seen edge-on
02 / 05
The top quarter
Bezels pulled in tight
03 / 05
Bottom, at 45°
Keys and ports, all in a row
04 / 05
The wake key
Restrained, but easy to reach
05 / 05
A little surprise
The microSD slot has a face
Features
Reading
Getting the text to lay out properly.
Plain TXT and EPUB are reflowed by CrossPoint’s engine and rendered with FreeType, so glyphs stay crisp at 219 DPI. Most of my work is in the Chinese typography — line-breaking and justification that don’t look wrong.
- TXT and EPUB reflow already working (HTML / Markdown ride the same path)
- CJK line-breaking, punctuation squeezing, and full justification
- Reading position kept across sleep and reboots
Hardware
Quiet, paper-like, daylight-loving.
A 4.26″ 800×480 panel at 219 DPI, driven 1-bit black & white for crisp text, with 4-level gray kept for covers and images. Battery-powered with deep sleep — and no frontlight, which is a choice, not an oversight.
- ESP32-C61 · 16 MB flash · 2 MB PSRAM · microSD over SPI
- 1-bit B/W for text, 4-gray for covers and pictures
- No frontlight: happiest in daylight — night reading needs a lamp
Setup
Configure it from your phone.
Seven buttons and no touchscreen make typing a WiFi password on-device miserable. So the reader hosts its own little web page — open it from any browser to set things up and push books across.
- Starts its own hotspot for first-time WiFi setup, or join over your LAN
- Upload EPUB / TXT straight from the browser to the SD card
- Enter WiFi, API keys, and sync settings without the on-screen keyboard
Controls
Built for pockets and commutes.
Seven physical keys, no touch. A long-press key-lock stops it flipping pages in your bag, and an optional Bluetooth page-turner means your hands can stay under the blanket.
- Long-press to lock; wakes locked so it won’t flip pages in a bag
- Optional BLE page-turner with learn-to-map buttons
- Page-turn direction follows the screen orientation
Tech specs
The details, for the curious.
Size & weight
- Dimensions
- 66.5 × 116 × 5 mm
- Weight
- 64 g
Display
- Panel
- 4.26″ e-ink · 800×480 · 219 dpi
- Rendering
- 1-bit B/W text · 4-gray covers
- Frontlight
- None — on purpose
- Controller
- SSD1677 (SPI)
Chip & memory
- SoC
- ESP32-C61
- Flash
- 16 MB
- PSRAM
- 2 MB
Storage
- Card
- microSD over SPI
- Filesystem
- FAT32 only
Controls
- Keys
- 7 physical · no touch
- Page-turner
- Optional Bluetooth LE
Connectivity
- Wireless
- Wi-Fi 6 · Bluetooth LE
- Port
- USB-C
Power
- Battery
- 1000 mAh · rechargeable
- Charging
- Over USB-C