ReadKinetic

Speed-read your own books, without handing them to anyone.

40 followers

Speed-read your own books, without handing them to anyone.

40 followers

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Speed-read your own books without handing them to anyone. Import an EPUB, PDF, Kindle book or Word file — thirty-seven formats in all — and ReadKinetic shows it one word at a time, fixed in place, so your eyes stop moving. Parsing happens in your browser; nothing is uploaded and there is no account. Installs as an app, works offline, keeps your place. It slows on long words and punctuation rather than chasing a fantasy WPM. Free, forever.

Free

Launch tags:Productivity•Education•Books

Launch Team / Built With

Maker

Hi HN— sorry, hi Product Hunt 👋

I'm Esat, a medical student over in Istanbul. I made this thing called ReadKinetic. The reason? Every speed-reading tool I tried made me upload my documents to their servers. But the books I really want to read are just sitting there in my downloads, as EPUBs and PDFs.

So, this tool here? It doesn't upload anything. Your files get processed right there in your browser, using JavaScript, and they never leave your computer. Easiest way to see this: just turn off your Wi-Fi, then try importing a book. It'll still work, because there's nowhere for it to send data.

Here's what it actually does: it shows you one word at a time, in the same spot. The idea is to stop your eyes from darting back and forth across the lines. It can handle thirty-seven different file types, remembers your chapters and where you left off, and it actually slows down a bit for longer words or punctuation. It's not trying to trick you with a fake number.

And what it won't do? It's not going to let you read a whole novel in twenty minutes. ReadKinetic helps stop your eyes from moving around, but it can't do the thinking for you. There's even a test on the site that won't give you a score if you're just skimming – and yes, mine does that too.

It's free, you don't need an account, and I built it all by myself. I'm really curious to hear where it struggles. Specifically, what did you try to open that it wouldn't accept?

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29d ago

@esatturan Congrats on the launch! 🎉 Love the privacy-first approach and the honest take on speed reading. Wishing you and ReadKinetic all the best!

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29d ago

Forum Threads

p/readkinetic

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29d ago

I built a speed-reading test that refuses to score you if you skimmed. Good design or self-sabotage?

All the speed-reading tests I've tried seem to have the same problem. There's nothing stopping you from just clicking through the text really fast and claiming you can read 900 words per minute. It sounds impressive, sure, but it doesn't actually mean anything.

So, I decided to build my own, but with a comprehension check built in. You read a passage, then answer some questions about it. If your score is at or around what you'd get just by guessing, you don't get a score. Instead, you get an explanation that there's no real way to know if you actually read it.

There were a couple of outcomes I didn't really anticipate. First, some people fail the test and get upset. I guess you could say that's actually the tool doing its job. Second, it made the results more useful, not less. Since comprehension is tracked as the speed increases, the test can tell you "you were still understanding the material at 332 wpm," instead of just giving you a theoretical top speed. That's a number you can actually do something with.

The thing I keep wrestling with is this: is it good product design to refuse to give someone a number they're looking for, or am I just annoying people and making them leave?

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Hi HN— sorry, hi Product Hunt 👋

It's free, you don't need an account, and I built it all by myself. I'm really curious to hear where it struggles. Specifically, what did you try to open that it wouldn't accept?