Two different lines of firmware for Onyx products. Onyx evades, censors discussion.

[sunbum]

This story unfolded on the Onyx bulletin boards over the past few weeks, and has left many of us who purchased Onyx e-readers scratching our heads and concerned about the security/authenticity of our devices. I'm sharing it here in order to bring those affected together, as well as to get insight from many of you more familiar with the e-reader community and business.

When you google "onyx boox", or any number of related search words, the top hit in the US and many countries around the world is onyxboox.com. This website presents itself as the official onyx store, and markets the products effectively to an international audience. I, like many others, did not question this, and bought my Onyx Boox Max 2 pro from that website. What those of us who bought our devices from onyxboox.com eventually realized, however, is that these devices can not be upgraded using the firmware released by Onyx at boox.com, which apparently is the "true" official home of Onyx boox.

Several discussions ensued about this matter at the Onyx bulletin board, located at bbs.onyx-international.com. Moreover, many users who bought their devices from onyxboox.com had private conversations with represenatitves from Onyx. The following facts came to light after significant digging:

- Onyxboox.com is not the official store of Onyx. In fact, they are a third party distributer headquartered in Russia. This was not made clear on onyxboox.com at the time, nor as of this date.

- Devices sold at Onyxboox.com have been "customized", and are therefore not serviced directly by Onyx. In fact, Onyx redirects all service requests regarding these devices to onyxboox.com.

- Specifically, devices sold at Onyxboox.com have been loaded with what the onyx represenative referred to as "customized firmware". This customized firmware follows the same version numbering as that released by Onyx, but effectively locks the device so that it can only be upgraded to the next version of the customized firmware. For example, if your device is loaded with the version 1.9.1 of the customized firmware, then you can not upgrade to version 2.0.1 of the original (uncustomized) firmware, nor can you reflash with any version of the original firmware; instead, you have to wait for onyxboox.com to release the customized version of firmware 2.0.1.

- Despite much questioning, neither Onyx nor their distributer onyxboox.com have provided a clear answer as to the differences between the original firmware and the customized firmware. The only "official statement" we were able to get from onyx is the following boilerplate: "The customized version is made to better meet the local customers’ needs in areas where our distributor are based in." These areas, presumably, are Russia and surrounding countries. The Russian distributer onyxboox.com, on the other hand, refuses to acknowledge that there is a difference between the firmwares, and evades direct questioning about the matter.

- Also despite much questioning, Onyx insists that those of us with the customized firmware can not switch over to the original (uncustomized) firmware. They claim that this can not be allowed since it would introduce bugs. This is despite claims by Onyx that the hardware sold by onyxboox.com is identical to that sold anywhere else.

Naturally, many of us who purchased our devices at onyxboox.com were not satisfied by the above outcomes. We continued to question the onyx represenative at the bulletin board bbs.onyx-international.com. After evading our questions or responding with biolerplate for a little while, it became clear that a number of users were not going to settle for these evasive responses, and Onyx eventually deleted those discussions in an apparent attempt to "bury" the topic. This is why a number of us decided to create this thread. Hopefully, the mobileread community is not censorial and will allow this discussion to be had. We are hoping for those of us with this problem to come forward and share our concerns, and those of you who know the business and technology in depth to weigh in with your thoughts on what might be going on here, and suggestions on how we should proceed.

[Philippe D.]

Interesting; I'll follow the discussions. And I'm happy that I bought my own Max 2 through another channel (and it does update normally).

[fgdas]

Originally Posted by sunbum

This story unfolded on the Onyx bulletin boards over the past few weeks, and has left many of us who purchased Onyx e-readers scratching our heads and concerned about the security/authenticity of our devices.

What is the difference between sending your data to Russia or China?

Even with Sony's Digital Paper you consent sharing/sending some of the data to Japan: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=288995

Perhaps going open source? https://forum.xda-developers.com/gen...t-rp1-t3654725

Or offline.

[lumpynose]

Meh, just another example to me of how Onyx is a half-baked company and I'm embarrassed to admit that I paid good money one of their e-readers. (Fortunately purchased from the store in Germany. I guess.) But now I understand why initially I thought they were made in Russia; if I'd known they were made by a Chinese company I wouldn't have bought it, although buying something made by a Russian company seemed highly questionable as well.

[EldRick]

I recently bought a Euclid from ECTACO and found an April 2019 software update for it at onyxboox.com, a major upgrade, making it a much better reader.

Curiously, there is no mention of the Euclid on the boox.com site.

Where does ECTACO fit into this? Does this onyxboox make their own hardware models too?

[sao]

I'm thinking of getting a onyx boox ereader from the US amazon website. How can I tell which version of firmware is installed on the amazon version?

Thanks.

[lumpynose]

Originally Posted by sao

I'm thinking of getting a onyx boox ereader from the US amazon website. How can I tell which version of firmware is installed on the amazon version?

Thanks.

I would guess that you can't, reliably. Even if someone here bought one from Amazon and it has the "right" firmware, amazon may change who they get it from. I bought mine from https://ereader.store/ and they are getting them from Onyx. You could email them and verify; they're very helpful and I've never seen any complaints about them here or elsewhere.

[sao]

Originally Posted by lumpynose

I would guess that you can't, reliably. Even if someone here bought one from Amazon and it has the "right" firmware, amazon may change who they get it from. I bought mine from https://ereader.store/ and they are getting them from Onyx. You could email them and verify; they're very helpful and I've never seen any complaints about them here or elsewhere.

Thanks. I should be a bit more specific: The US Amazon page for onyx readers has a link to an official looking "BOOX" page --- see e.g.

https://www.amazon.com/BOOX-Note-Pro...gateway&sr=8-3

and click "by BOOX". My question is whether the link is for the Russian vendor or the "official" onyx page.

[Hrafn]

Originally Posted by EldRick

Where does ECTACO fit into this? Does this onyxboox make their own hardware models too?

Ectaco is listed on the onyxboox.com homepage as their "USA Online Store", so they would be part of the "customized" branch. I believe they were also where I bought my 'customised' Monte Cristo (bought because its the most advanced model in the 'Kepler' line that is still in production), via Amazon.ca.

Originally Posted by lumpynose

I would guess that you can't, reliably. Even if someone here bought one from Amazon and it has the "right" firmware, amazon may change who they get it from.

Generally, Amazon will state their sourcing supplier, if you look carefully (which is how I knew where my Monte Cristo came from). Amazon.com's Booxes seem to mostly (all?) come from "Onyx International Inc", which would seem to imply that they're 'vanilla' Booxes.

'Customized'/'Vanilla' only really matters if you're either (i) wanting to do a warranty return (or otherwise seek after-sales assistance) or (ii) hoping for firmware updates. In the first situation, it's just a case of remembering who (or keeping the box your Boox came in if you think you'll forget ). In the second, chances are that you'll be disappointed regardless -- although Boox doesn't never produce an update, they always seem to be far fewer and further between than people hope for.

Is Onyx Boox a tad sparse on updates and support? Sure. But that's because they're not backed by a megacorp like Amazon, who's trying to nudge you into their walled garden. Independent=shoestring budget. At least we have a working official English firmware. I seem to remember that when the Boyue T63 came out, people were having to use 'unofficial' firmwares to make it work in English. With an 'independent' eReader, I think all you can really hope for is one with reasonably up-to-date features, and a reasonably good release firmware. On the former, Onyx Boox is better than Pocketbook, on the latter it is (or at least was) better than Boyue, so I'm not complaining too much.

[M4H35H]

Originally Posted by sunbum

- Onyxboox.com is not the official store of Onyx. In fact, they are a third party distributer headquartered in Russia. This was not made clear on onyxboox.com at the time, nor as of this date.

That cannot be right, they are based in New York. Take a look at this: https://onyxboox.com/buy.

Edit: Ectaco also is mentioned there.

[Hrafn]

Originally Posted by M4H35H

That cannot be right, they are based in New York. Take a look at this: https://onyxboox.com/buy.

Yes, it is -- the US webpage (and presumably the NY bricks 'n' mortar stores) are merely offshoots of the Russian parent. This is why the box for my 'customized' Monte Carlo is mostly in Russian. The Russian webpage has been going for a number of years, the original owner of onyxboox.com went belly up a few years ago, and the site got taken over by the Russian distributor and turned into an English-translation of the Russian page.

[plusz]

I was equally confused where should I get the updates from. There is http://www.onyx.com and http://onyx-international.com Luckily I noticed that both pages point to the same Google Drive bucket.

Regarding the Russian firmware, I would extract the images to run a diff against the Onyx one. It's quite interesting. I have extracted it once, using the LineageOS tools, IIRC.
https://wiki.lineageos.org/extractin...ock-based-otas

[Question Mark]

I rather suspect that there is not a lot of difference between the Russian version of the firmware and the Chinese. My guess is that they would both eventually get all relevant updates to each particular model although the Chinese versions might potentially get any such update a little bit quicker.

Personally, I would not have an issue with either version of the firmware. However, I would prefer the Chinese version simply because I can read Chinese whereas I cannot read Russian. Thus, I would rather have a firmware with an interface and dictionaries installed for English and Chinese than for Russian and English.

Apart from that, I don't really see it as being that big of an issue. However, they should perhaps be a little more transparent about which firmware people are receiving and where they should go for updates as not everyone likes to do OTA updates.

[whopper]

this have been known since years ago on this forum,

I don't know why they lock the devices from one or another firmware, but it is nothing new on their lineup.

In fact if I remember correctly, there was a moment when 3 different firmware's existed

[Hrod]

Before buying my Nova Pro (my first eraeder), I was confused by the Onyxboox.com site. It was the "first" Onyx site I stumbled upon. I eventually realised that Onyx was Chinese and that this website was not the official site.
That it's not official should be made clear and especially that the firmware is customized.
I guess that Onyx has an agreement with its Russian distributor that forbids them to provide a way to revert to the official firmware. These kinds of customized firmwares that you can't get rid off are really a bad idea.