A colleague posted in Slack about a wireless eReader page turner, which started a discussion about whether it would be possible to use an Apple Watch to do something similar. The results were even better than I’d imagined.

KOReader’s HTTP Inspector plugin was the key

A developer tool makes the page-turner possible

Credit: Adam Davidson / How-To Geek

I’d already jailbroken my ancient Kindle 4 after Amazon announced that it was dropping support for the device. Since I can no longer buy or borrow books from the Kindle Store on the device, or download books from my cloud library, I decided to jailbreak it to turn it back into a useful device.

Once jailbroken, I installed the Kindle Unified Application Launcher (KUAL) which lets you launch third-party applications, and installed the KOReader document viewer which lets me read any books I add to my Kindle. It’s much more versatile than the standard Kindle software, with native support for a wide range of formats and excellent PDF features.

KOReader includes a developer tool called HTTP Inspector, which is primarily intended to help developers debug KOReader. It runs a small HTTP server on the Kindle that responds to GET requests, and you can use this to trigger actions, such as turning the page forward or backward.

Storage

16GB

Screen Size

6-inches

Even in the budget department, the Amazon Kindle is a stellar value, from its light and compact design, to its adjustable front light and 6-inch display.

Setting up KOReader HTTP Inspector

Making my Kindle pages turn remotely

A quick bit of research uncovered the commands that should make my pages turn using HTTP Inspector in KOReader. The HTTP server needs to be up and running before these commands will work.

In KOReader, go to the Tools menu, choose More tools (which may be on a later page), and select KOReader HTTP Inspector. I changed the Port to 8181 since port 8080 was already in use for something else and selected Start HTTP server.

In a web browser on my computer, I entered the following, replacing [Kindle-IP] with the IP address of my Kindle:

http://[Kindle-IP]:8181/koreader/event/GotoViewRel/1 I watched in awe as the page in KOReader turned. I followed it up with:

http://[Kindle-IP]:8181/koreader/event/GotoViewRel/-1 The page turned back again. I could now turn the pages on my Kindle remotely.

Using Shortcuts to turn the pages from my phone

Two simple shortcuts are all that’s needed

Since these HTTP requests will work from any device on my local network that can reach the Kindle, the next step was to get it to work from my iPhone. The solution was fairly simple; I just needed to create a couple of iOS shortcuts.

One of the actions in the Shortcuts app is the Get Contents of URL action. This action lets you make HTTP requests from your phone, which was exactly what I needed. I could use the action to call the page forward URL, and running the shortcut would turn the page.

In the Shortcuts app, I created a new shortcut, and searched for the Get Contents of URL action. I entered http://[Kindle-IP]:8181/koreader/event/GotoViewRel/1 as the URL field, tapped the arrow, and set the method to GET. I named the shortcut Kindle Next.

When I ran the shortcut on my phone, the Kindle turned to the next page, as if by magic. I repeated the process with http://[Kindle-IP]:8181/koreader/event/GotoViewRel/-1 as the URL and created another shortcut called Kindle Prev.

Now I could tap either of the shortcuts to make the pages turn backward and forward on my Kindle. I went back into each shortcut, tapped the i icon at the bottom of the screen, and ensured that Show on Apple Watch was enabled, so that the shortcuts would show on my Apple Watch.

AssistiveTouch made the magic happen

My fingers became the page turner

Credit: Adam Davidson / How-To Geek

Once I’d enabled the shortcuts for my Apple Watch, I could see them in the Shortcuts app on my watch. Opening the Shortcuts app, I could tap either shortcut button, and the pages would turn. My watch was now a page turner.

This was the original idea that we’d been discussing, but I wondered if I could take it a step further. My Apple Watch is a Series 6 and doesn’t have the Double Tap gesture found on later watches, but you can recreate a similar thing using the Accessibility tools.

Accessibility includes an AssistiveTouch feature called Hand Gestures that lets you control your Apple Watch by tapping your fingers together or clenching your hand. The best part is that you can customize what these gestures do, and even assign shortcuts to each gesture. I set up the Tap action to run my Kindle Next shortcut, and the Double Tap action to run my Kindle Prev action.

On my Apple Watch, I went to Settings > Accessibility > AssistiveTouch and enabled AssistiveTouch. I selected Hand Gestures, enabled it, and selected the Tap gesture. I scrolled down to the Shortcuts section and selected the Kindle Next shortcut. I repeated the process to set the Double Tap gesture to the Kindle Prev shortcut.

With AssistiveTouch enabled, I tried tapping my fingers together, and the page of my Kindle turned. I did a double-tap, and the page turned back. My fingers had now become a wireless Kindle page turner.

Brand

Apple

Heart Rate Monitor

Yes

The Apple Watch Series 11 offers the ability to sense high blood pressure and a sleep score similar to many health app competitors.

Making the page turner usable

I had to tweak some Apple Watch settings

When I tried using my fingers as a page turner for real, as I lay in bed reading, I discovered an issue. The screen on my Apple Watch would go to sleep after a few seconds, and once it was asleep, the gesture no longer worked.

I fixed this by setting the Wake Duration to 70 seconds, which is long enough for me to finish a reading page on the Kindle, so my watch is still awake when I perform the next tap gesture. I went to Settings > Display & Brightness > Wake Duration and selected Wake for 70 Seconds.

I also added a shortcut to turn AssistiveTouch on and off so that I wouldn’t keep turning the pages of my Kindle accidentally. You can set this by going to Settings > Accessibility and then scrolling to the very bottom to select Accessibility Shortcut. I set this to AssistiveTouch, and I can now turn AssistiveTouch on and off at any time with a triple press of the digital crown.

Using my Kindle has never been so easy

The conversation started with some people (me included) asking why you would ever need a page turner for a Kindle. Having started using my own fingers, I can now see the benefit. In bed, I can prop the Kindle on my lap, keep both arms warm and toasty under the covers, and still turn the pages just by tapping my fingers. It really does feel like magic.