Hobbyist builds “Mirtillo,” an open-source e‑ink productivity device for under €50

Meet Mirtillo

A developer has built a pocket-sized digital agenda called Mirtillo that tracks tasks, events, suggests schedules and manages simple budgets — all on a 4.7‑inch e‑ink screen. It has been reported that the code is open‑source and that the project author wrote the whole stack. Simple interface, low power, readable display. No fluff.

Why build hardware?

The project started from plain frustration. The author says TickTick plus manual calendar scheduling left too much room to procrastinate; a Telegram bot prototype lacked a always‑on dashboard. Why learn a whole new mobile platform when you can glue hardware and code together? So the answer was an inexpensive, dedicated e‑ink device — something that understands the user rather than the other way around.

Cheap parts, earnest hacking

Mirtillo runs on an M5Stack Paper S3: a 4.7" e‑ink touchscreen dev kit with Wi‑Fi, Bluetooth, a microSD slot, a buzzer and an ESP32 CPU. It has been reported that the device cost less than €50 including shipping. Development used MicroPython and the device’s draw primitives — which meant no ready‑made UI: the developer hand‑built the interface from scratch. The emotional high point? Coding through a week‑long vacation with a tolerant partner while the unit slowly became something that actually works. Cute, practical, and a little bit of hacker romance.

What this means

This is a reminder that off‑the‑shelf apps don’t always fit how people actually live their days. A cheap, hackable e‑ink gadget plus open code can be more flexible than another subscription service. Will others adopt Mirtillo as a model for personal productivity hardware? Time — and contributors — will tell.

Sources: thelibre.news, Lobsters