Kobo Dashboard

A simple dashboard built with legacy web technologies for E-book readers with integrated browser.

Using an e-book reader compared to DIY solutions has the benefit of being an all-in-one package: Wi-Fi, touchscreen, browser, case.

Example

I built the following dashboard for my children to see what weekday and time of day it is:

Live Page

The dashboard is automatically deployed from the main branch. You can view it at https://emick.github.io/kobo-dashboard/.

Design

Why so legacy technologies?

Unfortunately Kobo browser does not support newer web technologies. The website must be built using ES5 Javascript and CSS 2 (although supports vendor specific properties such as -webkit-transform).

Newer javascript would need build tooling to be supported. That might be added later, but so far keeping things simple has been preferred.

Why all-in-one html?

To not require a build tool and avoid .js caching problems.

Device Configuration

Kobo Aura One

1. Connect your Kobo eReader to your computer
2. Navigate to .kobo/Kobo and open the file Kobo eReader.conf
3. Add the following options (with homepage as your dashboard hosting webpage)

[Browser]
homePage=https://yourdomain.com/yourdashboard

[FeatureSettings]
FullScreenBrowser=true

The following options may work in other devices, but not for Kobo Aura One:

[DeveloperSettings]
ForceAllowLandscape=true

4. Save the file then eject your Kobo eReader

NOTE: Line-endings must be LF. Make sure that DeveloperSettings, FeatureSettings or Browser are not duplicated

Testing

To preview the dashboard for a specific date, append the today query parameter to the URL. For example index.html?today=2025-08-22 renders the page as if the current day was 22nd August 2025.

Alternatives

• https://github.com/RolandColored/kobo-display
• https://homey.app/en-us/blog/homey-ink/