PaperMono, e-ink fridge magnet shopping list with mobile web page
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Fridge magnet shopping list on an M5Stack PaperMono (ESP32-S3, e-ink touchscreen), synced with a phone web app over Wi-Fi. Works offline, ~2,400 lines of C++.This is a great wee device! BLE, Wi-Fi and LoRa on one board makes it flexible for way more than a shopping list, this is just what I built first. This firmware only uses Wi-Fi.Fully vibe-coded with Claude Code, I didn't hand-write this. I wanted to see how Claude would get on with building something useful for a new hardware device.As it's stuck to the fridge it's easy for the family to use, and it's already being used day to day which I'll admit is a first for a home built project like this
HN · launched Sep 28, 2026 · 150 upvotes (top 5%) · 0 views
Niche: smart home and iot devices · 59 launches, 2 in the last 7 days · Explore this niche →
Category and tags
- Horizontal
- Hardware & robotics
- B2C
- Not AI
- Commercial product
Visit website ↗ Source listing ↗
More like this: all 59 launches in smart home and iot devices →
Could you build this?
Partial The companion web app and basic HTTP communication are simple, but writing robust embedded C++ firmware for ESP32 e-ink screens with memory constraints and power management requires physical hardware tinkering.
What it would actually take: The stack consists of an ESP-IDF or Arduino C++ firmware running on an ESP32-S3 microcontroller communicating via HTTP/WebSocket or BLE to a lightweight web service. The challenging parts are low-level e-ink partial refresh waveform handling, managing ESP32 SRAM limitations, deep sleep power cycling, and local flash persistence. Building it requires an electrical engineering or embedded systems background and hands-on hardware debugging tools.
Discussion
20 comments analyzed.
Competitors mentioned: Zectrix, Xteink, Kindle, HomePod with screen, PaperMario
Concerns raised: Vibe-coded projects lack novelty, Requiring UPC info for store aisle APIs, Sticky notes falling off
Feature requests: 10" or 12" countertop display, Voice dictation via microphone, Recipe and meal planning mode, Aisle-by-aisle sorting
Competitors
Other products that read as similar to this one : 67 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.
Attention rank: #6 of 68 (itself plus its competitors, highest first, normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).
Launched 313 days after the earliest competitor.
- papermono-shopping-list · github · 2026-09-27 · 180 upvotes · similarity 0.59
- Metalio-E-INK4-Plus · github · 2026-09-30 · 10 upvotes · similarity 0.42
- Metalio-E-INK4 · github · 2026-09-14 · 9 upvotes · similarity 0.41
- Clingy · ph · 2026-11-03 · 2 upvotes · similarity 0.40
- fridge-eink-display · github · 2026-10-11 · 32 upvotes · similarity 0.39
- List stuff to borrow for your people, anonymously · hn · 2026-08-12 · 5 upvotes · similarity 0.39
- ha-appliance-electromenager-cards · github · 2026-10-13 · 33 upvotes · similarity 0.38
- Ember · hn · 2025-12-06 · 7 upvotes · similarity 0.36
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