There’s a company on Amazon that’s selling a new Bluetooth Remote Page Turner that’s marketed specifically for Kobo eReaders, and it’s selling for half the price of Kobo’s official remote.
The list price is currently $15.99, but there’s a coupon that takes the price down to $14.39. Kobo sells their official Kobo Remote for $33.99 on Amazon, and it’s $29.99 when purchased through Kobo’s website.
The alternative remote has a similar design as the Kobo Remote, with one large button positioned above one smaller button. Each button has dual functions for short press and long press (does the official remote support long press functions?).
It’s a Bluetooth remote so it doesn’t require one of those clunky clip-on receivers like you have to use with some other options. There’s an indicator light to show when Bluetooth is connected, and the light also shows when the battery is low.
One key difference is the alternative remote has a rechargeable battery whereas the Kobo Remote uses a single AAA battery. There’s a USB port for charging. They say the battery can last more than 20 days when using the remote for 2 hours per day.
The unofficial Kobo Remote works with all the same models as the official remote, which includes the Kobo Clara 2E, Kobo Clara BW, Kobo Clara Colour, Kobo Libra 2, Kobo Libra Colour, Kobo Sage, Kobo Elipsa, and Kobo Elipsa 2E.
It looks like a good alternative if you don’t want to spend $30 on the official remote. They probably should’ve given it a quirky name to make it more memorable, though. It doesn’t really seem to have a name at all. It shows up as HBTR001-K when connecting it to Bluetooth, but that doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. It’s being marketed as a Kobo Remote but it should work with any ereader that supports Bluetooth page turners. In fact they’re selling the exact same remote for the Xteink X4.
I found the same one on AliExpress. The cheapest offer was $4 (item 1005012395282654), but most sellers charge $7. I bought it to try it out.
Good. I love the Kobo one, but more options is always better.
I have Kobo’s official remote and it does not have long press features at this time – just page forward or page backward in books and some menus. I would love to know how those long press features could be used from the person who bought it for testing.
And I prefer replaceable batteries because at some point rechargeable batteries no longer hold a full charge and eventually can no longer hold a charge at all. I like not having to worry about that. Just my personal preference…
I should clarify that the kobo remote long press does page forward or backward faster – kind of a fast forward/fast reverse. But paging forward/backward are the only options using the kobo remote buttons currently.
As far as batteries go I’m 6 months in and haven’t changed the one AAA battery the Kobo came with. My real problem with these page turners in the past is the rechargeable non-changeable batteries die off after 3 or 4 years rendering it useless. The Kobo seems superior for that reason and in my opinion worth the price.
Agree 100%.