OldPhoneKiosk
Polski

Kindle display

A Kindle becomes a quiet e-ink home display.

Old Kindles have a beautiful, glare-free screen and days of battery. OldPhoneKiosk turns that into a calm, read-only view of your home — without asking the Kindle to do anything clever.

Bedroom Kindle09:41

Today at home

  • School pickup15:30
  • Buy milkTask
  • Hallway lightsOff
  • BinsTuesday

Refreshed by Home Assistant. No camera. No mic. No pairing.

No pairing on the Kindle.

The Kindle browser is old and limited, so we never ask it to pair or run heavy JavaScript. Home Assistant does the work and hands back a plain local URL.

  1. Home Assistant You add the Kindle

    Create a web display and tell Home Assistant this surface is a Kindle.

  2. Local URL It hands back an address

    Home Assistant returns a plain page served by the Bridge on your network.

  3. Kindle browser You open it on the Kindle

    Type the address into the experimental browser and set it as home.

  4. E-ink It renders as a calm page

    The Bridge serves lightweight HTML the old browser draws cleanly on e-ink.

http://homeassistant.local:8123/opk/bedroom-kindle One plain local address — set it as the Kindle's home page.
  1. 1

    Create in Home Assistant

    Add a Kindle web display in the integration and pick which room it belongs to.

  2. 2

    Get a local URL

    Home Assistant returns a local address served by the Bridge on your network.

  3. 3

    Open it on the Kindle

    Type the URL into the Kindle's experimental browser and set it as home. Done.

What the Kindle shows

Calendar

The next few events for your household, in large high-contrast type.

Tasks

A short to-do list sourced from Home Assistant, easy to read across a room.

Dashboard state

Key values — lights, locks, bins day — as plain text, not live tiles.

What it intentionally doesn't show

A Kindle browser can't do these well, and forcing it would ruin the calm. So we leave them off.

No camera

E-ink can't render a live video feed, so camera views stay on iOS panels.

No microphone

There is no intercom on the Kindle — it is a display, not a two-way device.

No heavy dashboards

Animated, JavaScript-heavy dashboards are replaced by a clean server-rendered page.

Setup steps

One service call in Home Assistant creates the display and returns its URL.

Create a Kindle web display 
service: oldphonekiosk.create_web_display
data:
  name: Bedroom Kindle
  area: bedroom
  mode: read_only
# → returns display_url

Kindle FAQ

Which Kindles work?

Any Kindle with the experimental web browser that can open a local URL on your network. Older keyboard and touch models are ideal — their e-ink screens look great on a shelf.

Does the Kindle need an account or app?

No. There is nothing to install and no pairing. You only open a local URL that Home Assistant created for you.

How often does it refresh?

Home Assistant controls the refresh cadence. E-ink updates are deliberate rather than constant, which keeps the display calm and saves battery.

Does it work without internet?

Yes, as long as the Kindle and Home Assistant are on the same local network. The page is served by the Bridge on your LAN.

Give an old Kindle a job

The Kindle display is part of the Home Assistant integration.

Set it up from GitHub