Kindle DX Gets Bluetooth Terminal Hack

Amazon's hiding of serial port connections inside the Kindle isn't a new discovery, but adding a Bluetooth module to it is.  Tinkerer Darron cracked open his Kindle DX and snapped his way through enough plastic to fit in a SparkFun Bluetooth Mate module; that means he can wirelessly connect to the Kindle DX to get a serial terminal on the ereader.

The project builds on previous work getting a telnet connection with the Kindle over a USB connection, but of course this new hack allows for wireless access.  Right now there's no power management or local Bluetooth searching control; when it's turned on and unpaired, the Bluetooth module is constantly searching for a new connection, which has seen battery life for the Kindle DX drop from over a week to around four days.

Darron has also been working on getting Qt running on the Kindle, and so far he's managed to compile the platform and throw in support for the E Ink display, the QWERTY keyboard and the 5-way joystick.  Just to show it all works, he's also got a Sudoku app running; who needs Amazon's Kindle Development Kit, eh?

[via Hack a Day]