Read without limits.

WaddleOS is my own firmware for the Xteink X4 Pro e-reader and the LilyGO T5 mesh units. Besides the reader it has:

• Hjem: clock, weather, the book you are reading and NRK headlines, with penguins.
• Nyheter: NRK's top stories as a book, fetched from arnee.me.
• A Bluesound remote.
• Penguin boot and sleep screens (src/core/waddle/, assets/waddle/).
• One command on the computer, waddle, for updates, books and the dictionary.
• A build for the X4 Pro only.

Privacy: nothing about what or how much you read leaves the reader by itself. No cloud sync, telemetry, update checks, plugin uploads or network announcements. See the plan and privacy notes.

Install

1. Download waddleos-x4pro.bin from the waddle-latest pre-release. It is built from the waddle branch.
2. Flash it once over USB with an ESP32 web flasher that takes a custom .bin, or upload it over Wi-Fi and use Settings → firmware update on the reader.

Back up the stock firmware first. Only for units that are not USB-locked (bought from xteink.com).

The waddle command

Add it to your shell once (zsh; use ~/.bashrc for bash):

echo 'waddle() { curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ArneeMe/waddleos/waddle/tools/waddle | python3 - "$@"; }' >> ~/.zshrc

Open File Transfer → Join a Network on the reader, then:

waddle update              # install the latest build from GitHub (or: waddle update firmware.bin)
waddle book <link or file> # get an EPUB, remove scripts and trackers, send it to /Books
waddle add [-d /folder] f  # upload any file as it is
waddle dict get            # put the English dictionary from arnee.me on the reader

Set WADDLE_IP if the reader's IP is not 192.168.50.185.

Build

pio run -e x4pro-waddle

Working on WaddleOS

• waddle is the main branch. Work on a branch and open a pull request into it.
• See AGENTS.md for the goals and rules.

Credits

Built on the FreeInk SDK. MIT license, see LICENSE.