Ultimate Guide to the reMarkable 2 (Part 1)

Elegant flow with a truly remarkable tablet

“My Favorite Hacks” on a reMarkable 2 tablet

If you’re curious about the reMarkable 2 tablet and want to get the most out of it, you’re in the right place. The best tablet experience requires an elegant hack or two and happens to let you avoid a few expenses as well. Part 1 below explores how to make the reMarkable 2 what I consider to be “perfect.” Part 2 focuses on reading and annotating ebooks and PDFs with ease and flow, and describes how to get your Kindle books onto your reMarkable 2 tablet.

What I Love about reMarkable 2

I have a lot of gadgets, including an Apple iPad Pro. The iPad is perfect when I’m illustrating articles like these or watching shows from the sofa. The rest of the time, it’s a total distraction and just terrible for getting things done. When it’s time to relax and focus, the reMarkable 2 is my first and only choice.

• No backlight, no blue glow: it reads like paper.
• Velvety screen plus a toothy stylus: it feels like paper.
• No apps, no distractions: my ADHD can chill out, and I can focus.
• A beautiful calligraphy pen: it has me writing letters again—in cursive!
• Long battery life: I’ve only run out once.
• Light and easy to carry: I’m more likely to have it with me.
• Low profile: It looks like a paper notebook, so I’m not another laptop zombie at the café.
• Simple gestures: quick and easy gestures let you close documents, swipe pages, pinch-to-zoom, and quick-browse pages and documents.

Some quibbles, though

Unfortunately, the reMarkable tablet doesn’t have a quick way to enable the eraser, undo, and redo functions; there are no gestures for these out of the box (just lots of tapping). Instead, there is a lovely hack by DDVK that solves all these challenges … and more!

A most elegant hack you most definitely need

Most of the gestures pictured come with “the DDVK hack.” These additions solve every quibble I’ve ever had with the tablet. With these added features, the tablet is perfect. Note: adding any hack will technically void the warranty. But it’s all based on open-source software, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

Save money on the stylus:
If you are debating whether to buy a Marker vs. a Marker Plus, adding this hack makes the math simple: switching to the eraser is just a gesture, so you don’t need the Marker Plus. The regular Marker is 33% the price of the Plus. Or, if you prefer to have a gesture-free method of erasing (using a button), you could buy the Lamy EMR stylus for 50% of the cost of the Plus.

How to install the DDVK hack

The DDVK documentation is easy to follow for initial installation, and I recreate it here if you don’t feel like clicking.

Preparing for first-time installation

1. Make sure you have a USB cable to connect the tablet to your computer (reMarkable 2 has a USB-C connection).
2. Find the ssh password to your tablet and write it down somewhere safe: Settings » Help » Copyright and Licenses » look in the “GPLv3 Compliance” section toward the bottom, written in bold text.

Installing for the first time

1. Connect the tablet to your computer via USB.
2. On your computer, open the terminal (Mac) or command line prompt (Windows) and paste one of the following (whichever one works):
   ssh root@10.11.99.1
   ssh root@192.168.1.190
3. When prompted, paste the ssh Password (the one from above).
4. Paste and run this magic script:
   sh -c “$(wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ddvk/remarkable-hacks/master/patch.sh -O-)”
5. Test things out on the tablet, and when you’re ready, ctrl^c to exit, and y (yes) to commit the update.
6. The tablet will restart, and you should be good to go.

Installing updates

Any time you update the firmware on your tablet, you will need to reinstall the hack. You can also update the hack with new releases at any time. Make sure the latest version of the hack supports the latest version of the reMarkable firmware. Follow the instructions above, but you will likely run into an error.

If you get this error…
@ WARNING: REMOTE HOST IDENTIFICATION HAS CHANGED! @

You can follow the steps outlined at https://woorkup.com/warning-remote-host-identification-has-changed/

Important Note: Don’t take the below steps unless you are confident that there’s no security risk threatening your connection. I run into this error nearly every time I try to update.

But here’s the brute force approach in a nutshell:

1. Enter this into the terminal:
   rm .ssh/known_hosts
2. You won’t see any response, but know that it worked.

After that, maintaining updates is as follows:

1. Make sure the latest hack version supports the latest reMarkable firmware version.
2. Update firmware first.
3. Update the hack as above.

One more hack for the Lamy EMR Stylus…

The Lamy EMR stylus is an excellent alternative to the Marker Plus because it places the eraser within easy reach as a button. The trade-off is a larger form factor with no magnetic attachment to the tablet. It requires two conditions to be a suitable alternative to the Marker or Marker Plus: 1) replace its stylus tip with a reMarkable stylus tip, and 2) install the following hack.

Installing the stylus hack

1. Connect the tablet to your computer via USB.
2. On your computer, open the terminal (Mac) or command line prompt (Windows) and paste one of the following (whichever one works):
   ssh root@10.11.99.1
   ssh root@192.168.1.190
3. When prompted, paste the ssh Password (the one you wrote down in previous steps).
4. Paste and run the following script:
   sh -c “$(wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ddvk/remarkable-stylus/master/patch.sh -O-)”
5. The table restarts, and you should be good to go.

Check out Part 2 in this series for tips on reading, writing, and annotating your ebooks and PDFs (and how to get Kindle books onto your reMarkable 2 tablet)