Connecting to the cloud is now available without a subscription and the Connect subscription is cheaper

reMarkable is a maker of e-readers with stylus support. The devices are characterized by their light weight and long service life. Until now, reMarkable managed certain functions, such as connecting to the cloud, with a subscription. In the meantime, there has been some competition, for example with the Huawei MatePad Paper. reMarkable has now responded and made changes to the subscription service. In addition, new functions for the new software ecosystem are also announced.

So far, reMarkables had a few items on the box that required a paid subscription of just under $8 per month. In addition to connecting to cloud solutions (Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive), this also includes handwriting conversion. Sending e-mails and screen sharing were also previously reserved for Connect subscribers. This will change from now on. These features are now available to all reMarkable users. I could well imagine that existing customers as well as new customers will find some open ears.

The Connect subscription price is also reduced from EUR 7.99 to EUR 2.99. Now there’s cloud functionality that goes beyond writing, reading, and commenting on the eReader. Connect subscribers have access to the internal cloud as well as desktop and mobile apps. They keep the notes in sync. Subscribers should also get exclusive offers and security in the form of the reMarkable 2 protection plan.

There’s also a preview of what’s to come over the course of the year in terms of new software updates. In the future, there will be documents combining handwritten and typed text. Among other things, continuous vertical scrolling in the pages is then supported. In addition, handwriting recognition needs to be improved. The objective is very clear: to work with notes on different devices. But it looks like you can cope with the external cloud connection even without a subscription. Trying it out certainly doesn’t hurt reMarkable. If you buy a new device, you can certainly test it sufficiently within the free one-year Connect subscription and find a suitable workflow there.