A 13-year-old Kindle becomes a desk assistant after a jailbreak

A Kindle owner has repurposed a 2013, 6th-generation Kindle Paperwhite as a desk assistant by jailbreaking the device and adding custom software. TechRadar reports that the project was shown in a Reddit demo video by a user identified as Witespace.

The Kindle now works as a to-do list manager, a Stream Deck-like app launcher and a Pomodoro timer. It can sync with both a MacBook and a PC through a Cloudflare web account, switching between the computers automatically or with a manual button press. Completed tasks disappear from the screen, and calendar sync enables alerts five minutes before scheduled meetings. A button can join a call with a single tap.

Other features include a weather app, dark mode and a screensaver clock. The custom software can also disable the screensaver so the Kindle stays on indefinitely, though it needs occasional recharging.

Witespace plans to add shortcuts to specific Spotify playlists and Slack channels, and says light controls are also in development. The Reddit user has said they plan to release the source code on GitHub so others can install the software on their own older Kindles. The project’s source code has not yet been released, according to the report.