I’m brand new to eBooks and have started building a large collection that I’m planning to self-host on a Kavita library. I haven’t yet purchased an eReader. I don’t need note-taking capabilities. I just want the best eReading experience with my own self-hosted library and am willing to pay for a better experience. Appreciate your patience with my noob question and thank you for your recommendations.
calibre-web plays really nice with my kindle paperwhite.
just click the
send to e-readerbutton on any book and it appears on the kindle, ready to goIts even better with a Kobo, because you can set it up as a Sync server and “replace the Kobo Store” with your Calibre server. It makes it so any book you have on your server will appear like something youve purchased from the Kobo Store, and let you download it from the server to device, directly from your Kobo
Can you link some tutorial about this? I don’t need it now, because I have a Kobo N514 with 32 Gb microsd, but if/when I decide to buy a new one, I’ll be forced to use your method. I already have all my books on a server on both Kavita, Ubooquity and COPS, so I just need the Kobo configuration part I guess.
any particular models you’d recommend? looking on ebay to maybe pick up a cheaper one to try this out, but loads of them seem to be very old. i know nothing whatsoever about kobos so a bit lost.
Not really - It depends on how you prefer the form factor. I liked the side handle of the kindle oasis, so I went with a Libra 2 during their holiday sales last year. If you like the normal form factor, then the Clara 2e/Nia is probably what you want (or an older model).
You can’t sideload audiobooks, so don’t use that as a deciding feature of which one you pick up.
thanks. do those older models have the same functionality that allows sync with a CW library?
Alright, I guess in lieu of a better FOSS solution coming along, I’m getting a Kobo. Thanks for sharing this, I had no idea it supported that.
Thank you kindly for your reply. I’ve just started using Calibre to help me clean up my metadata. But I haven’t explored Calibre-web. I was really hoping for a plex-like experience with kavita whereby I could casually peruse my library.
In Calibre, you can also run a web server. On her Kindle Paperwhite, my wife simply goes to the “experimental web browser” and browse to 192.168…:8080, which shows all the available books. From there she downloads the mobi version of the book she wants and done.
Yes calibre-web (separate thing from calibre itself… confusing name) is just like plex for books. It even has a dark mode that looks exactly like plex
Calibre server + kobo reader
I use Calibre on my laptop to manage my book collection and Calibre-web on a server with the Kobo extension enable to sync books automatically with my Kobo.
It works pretty well!
You didnt specify a budget, so reMarkable.
If you want something cheaper, i’d go with kobo. But more importantly, buy something that is supported by koReader. This can connect with your selfhosted odps server for maximum convenience.
