Developer Alireza Alavi reported strained eyes after 14 hours of reviewing software licenses, so he addressed the issue by using an ePaper tablet as a secondary display. While you can purchase a purpose-built ePaper monitor, it will cost an additional $199. So, Alavi instead used an old Onyx Boox Note Air 2 tablet he had lying around at home. According to the dev, he used the tablet to mirror his laptop display, allowing him to glance at it if he needed to see a color version of the app he’s working on. He primarily uses it for reading and some writing, especially since the latency on the old Onyx device isn’t as good as on more modern devices.
Alavi actually made two attempts to make the solution work. For his first attempt, he used Deskreen—an in-browser screen-sharing app that lets you wirelessly stream your display over Wi-Fi. However, the streaming quality and input lag was unacceptable for reading, further compounding the slow speed of the tablet due to its age and specifications. Instead, he tried to work around the issue by using VNC.
VNC (Virtual Network Computing) is a remote desktop protocol that transmits pixel data to a remote display (unlike Windows Remote Desktop, which creates a new session on the remote machine). This is a bit more complicated than Deskreen, but Alavi said that it took him about 20 minutes to get it working on his Linux PC. From there, he just needed to download the AVNC client for the Android-powered ePaper tablet. With that done, he now has a working ePaper monitor for reading lengthy documents on.
Another advantage of VNC over Deskreen is that it lets him use the tablet as an input device. While he likely wouldn’t be able to use it as a sort of drawing tablet, especially because of the latency that older ePaper screens have, it’s still good enough for moving the cursor or even signing a document. While he could’ve purchased a standalone ePaper monitor for his needs, this small project is an ingenious way of giving a second life to older devices.
The Boox Note Air 2 launched in 2021, and while it’s still good enough for reading books, Onyx has since released newer models with color screens and improved performance. So, if you’ve recently upgraded your eBook reader and don’t want to turn your older device into e-waste, you can set up a VNC of your own and see how you can turn it into a secondary ePaper portable monitor for reading and other miscellaneous tasks on your computer.
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