A pocket-size clamshell with a real keyboard and a screen you can read in the sun. Built for the things I actually want to do quietly: write, take notes, listen to music. Solar on the lid. Charge lasts.
I wanted a small device for the parts of my day that benefit from being left alone with: writing, journaling, the occasional album. Phones and laptops are excellent at a thousand other things, and that's the problem.
So Orion only does a few. It opens like a notebook. The keyboard is full QWERTY, same layout your hands already use.
The screen is a Sharp Memory LCD: monochrome, reflective, easy on the eyes, fully readable outdoors. Combined with the STM32U5 (one of the lowest-power MCUs you can buy), the solar panel on the lid actually keeps up during normal use.
If you want it to do more than ship — a radio, a GPS tracker, something I haven't thought of — there's an expansion port and an SDK to make that easy.
Fits in a coat pocket. The hinge holds friction at any angle, so you can use it on a desk, a knee, or a café table without propping it up.
Form factorSharp Memory LCD. Reflective, sharp at any angle, fully readable outdoors. Pixels stay where you put them — no scan lines, no flicker.
DisplayA solar panel on the lid trickle-charges the cell whenever the device is closed. Combined with the U5's tiny idle current, a single charge usually lasts longer than I expect it to.
PowerFull tactile QWERTY with a function row and modifiers. Comfortable enough for actual writing — I drafted this page on it.
InputCapture a thought, sort it later, come back to it. The built-in apps stay deliberately small — there's no feed, no badges, no notifications fighting for your attention.
SoftwareOn-board DAC and a hardware MP3 decoder turn it into a small, surprisingly good music player. The mic handles voice memos when you need to catch an idea before it leaves.
Audio
“Closed, it disappears in my coat pocket. Open, it's a tiny notebook on the table. After a couple of weeks I stopped thinking of it as a gadget — it just became the thing I write on.”
Every part on the board was chosen with idle current in mind. The U5 is one of the most efficient general-purpose MCUs you can buy, which means the rest of the system spends most of its time asleep, and the battery lasts well beyond what the size suggests.
Charging is split between USB-C and the solar lid. Files live on a regular microSD card — pull it out, plug it into any computer, your notes are right there.
Orion isn't sealed. The expansion port breaks out the bus you need to build your own modules: Wi-Fi, sub-GHz radio, GPS, environmental sensors, anything you can fit and solder.
An SDK lands alongside the firmware, so your modules can ship apps with their own launcher entry and UI. They sit in the menu next to the built-in ones.
If you like building small hardware, or writing UI in tight memory budgets, you'll probably feel at home here. The plan is to keep the platform open, the docs accurate, and the toolchain free to use.
If any of this sounds like your kind of project, come say hi on Discord. Early collaborators very welcome.
It's early days. The PCB is real, the case is real, the firmware's being written this week. If you want to follow along, ask questions, or help out — here's where to find me.