Relio

Your Kobo library on your phone and computer.
Books, reading progress and highlights, straight from the e-reader over your Wi-Fi.

Relio adds a button to your Kobo's status bar. Tap it, scan the QR code with your phone, and your library opens in the browser: what you're reading, your highlights and notes, your collections. Add books by dragging them in, fix a highlight, delete a book, all without a cable, an account or a cloud.

Features

On the e-reader

• Its own icon next to search in the status bar, drawn to match Nickel's. No NickelMenu or other mod needed.
• A panel to connect a phone or computer with a QR code or a six-digit code, and to see and disconnect the devices that have access.
• Follows the e-reader's language.

In the browser

• The book you're reading, with its progress and the time left.
• The library with covers, search and filters by reading state.
• Drag and drop to add books. EPUBs are converted to KEPUB on the e-reader, so they get the Kobo page layout and reading statistics.
• Highlights and notes for every book: change the colour, add or edit a note, delete.
• Your collections, as set up on the Kobo.
• Download or delete a book, with a confirmation first.
• Made for phones too, follows the light or dark theme, and adds to the home screen.
• Available in 30 languages.

Install

1. Plug the Kobo into a computer and tap Connect on its screen.
2. Download KoboRoot.tgz from the latest release and copy it into the hidden .kobo folder of the e-reader, without renaming it.
3. Eject the Kobo and unplug it. It installs the update while restarting, in about a minute.
4. Turn on Wi-Fi. The Relio icon shows up in the status bar.

With Chrome or Edge on a computer, the installer page does steps 2 and 3 for you.

To connect a phone, tap the Relio icon, then Connect a device, and scan the QR code. Both need to be on the same Wi-Fi network.

Updates

While Wi-Fi is on, the e-reader checks for a new version about once a day. Releases are signed, and the e-reader refuses any package this project didn't sign. A new version downloads in the background and installs the next time the e-reader restarts; the Relio panel says when one is ready and can restart the e-reader for you. If a new version of the daemon fails to start, the previous one comes back.

To turn the checks off, create an empty file .adds/relio/no-updates on the e-reader.

Privacy

• The dashboard is served by the e-reader itself. Your library never leaves your network, and there's no account to create.
• The only request to the internet is the update check. It fetches a small file from relio.androne.dev or GitHub and sends nothing but the installed version.
• A browser only gets access after you enter the code shown on the Kobo. Codes last three minutes.
• Every connected device is listed on the e-reader, and you can disconnect it at any time.
• The dashboard loads nothing from third parties: no fonts, no CDN, no analytics.

Compatibility

Relio is tested on a Kobo Clara Colour with firmware 4.46. The daemon is a static ARMv7 binary and the plugin targets the Qt version Nickel ships with, so other recent models should work too, but they haven't been tried yet. If you run it on another model, an issue saying how it went is very welcome.

If Nickel ever crashes at startup, the plugin turns itself off at the next restart. To turn it off by hand, create an empty file .adds/relio/disable-plugin on the e-reader and restart.

How it works

Part	Role
nickel/	Qt plugin loaded by Nickel: status bar icon and panel
crates/reliod	Daemon on the Kobo: dashboard, API, pairing, uploads
crates/relio-core	Reads and edits KoboReader.sqlite across firmware versions
crates/relio-kepub	EPUB to KEPUB conversion, a port of kepubify
web/	Dashboard and installer page
i18n/	Every user-facing text, one file per language

The details are in docs/architecture.md and docs/firmware-notes.md, and what's next in docs/roadmap.md.

Contributing

Building, running the daemon on your computer, working on a device and adding a language are covered in CONTRIBUTING.md.

License

Relio is released under the Apache License 2.0. The KEPUB converter is a port of kepubify; its notices are in NOTICE.

Relio is not affiliated with Rakuten Kobo Inc. Kobo is a trademark of Rakuten Kobo Inc.