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Calm e-ink dashboard

See your progress without picking up your phone.

QuietDash is a small e-ink screen for your desk. It shows the few numbers you actually care about, then it sits there quietly. No glow, no notifications, no reason to keep checking it.

people asked to be told when it's ready, most of them from a Reddit post that did better than I expected.

17:18 left, 92% of the day gone, four things to do.

The itch

You unlock your phone around 60 times a day.

Most of those are 30-second checks: the time, a number, did anything change. By the time the screen lights up, a notification has already pulled you somewhere you didn't mean to go. The information was never the problem. The doorway was.

QuietDash is the opposite of a doorway. The thing you wanted to glance at is just there, on paper, already. Nothing to open. Nothing to escape.

What it is

An e-ink screen that shows your day, then shuts up.

Not a smart display. Not a tablet. Not another thing pinging for attention. One quiet surface that does a single job well.

  1. 01

    It pulls the few things you track

    Focus time, habits, a budget, your writing streak. You pick what matters. It ignores everything else, on purpose.

  2. 02

    It renders them like ink on paper

    Real e-ink, 800 by 480, dithered black and white. No backlight glowing at you across a dark room, no blue light, no battery you have to think about.

  3. 03

    Then it leaves you alone

    It refreshes a few times an hour and goes quiet. No feed to scroll, no badge to clear, no next thing. You glance, you know, you get back to it.

The 30-second tour

See it cycle through a day.

Focus, today, markets, your network. It plays muted while you scroll. Tap play to watch it with sound.

Real screens

These are real renders, not mockups.

Every screen here came straight off the panel on my desk. The dithering you see is how e-ink actually draws. Pick the one that fits how you think, or build your own.

A focus session screen: a large sweeping ring counting down a 25-minute pomodoro, with the time remaining in the center and the day’s tasks beside it.
A pomodoro you glance at
A task list screen with checkboxes, finished items struck through, and a count of how many are done.
Today’s few things
A finance screen showing a price, a daily change, and a simple line chart over 24 hours.
Markets, quietly
A network screen showing queries blocked today, a blocked-versus-allowed bar, and the most-blocked domains.
What your network blocked
The QuietDash panel on a desk, showing a calm workday dashboard.

The object

Paper to look at, not a screen to fall into.

7.5″ e-ink, 800 × 480
A matte, paper-like surface. You read it, you don’t stare into it.
No backlight, ever
Nothing glows. It looks the same in bright sun as in a lamp-lit room, and it won’t light up the dark.
Weeks on a charge
E-ink only draws power when the image changes. Most of the time it’s doing nothing, which is the point.
Silent by design
No fan, no chime, no notification it is even capable of making. It cannot interrupt you.

What people said

“I would actually buy this.”

When I shared QuietDash on Reddit and Bluesky, thousands of people had the same reaction. Here it is, unedited.

The conversation kept going, so I made a place for it: r/QuietDash.

I love this! If there was something like this to buy, I would buy it :)

u/human-computer-04r/digitalminimalism

This is super cool! I’d actually want one of those lol.

@tobu.bsky.socialBluesky

This is cool! I’d love something similar. If you open source it that would be awesome!

u/techbeezinr/digitalminimalism

Sincerely, register the patent and sell this, the product is excellent!

u/AutomaticGlass7295r/digitalminimalism

Everything around us is trying to grab our attention. I’m wondering if boring e-ink UIs could be the next big thing.

u/Defiant_Welder_7897r/webdev

This is such a great idea! Such a nice nudge if you work somewhere like a hospital to put something like this in the staff room.

u/interrogumptionr/fuckcars

I love this. Every time I unlock my phone I’m wasting lots of time lol.

u/Govstashr/digitalminimalism

Looks super clean! The challenge is always taking complex data and making it glanceable and intuitive. Great work on distilling the portfolio view down to the essentials.

@nutriclarity.bsky.socialBluesky

Huge launch, congrats! It’s an interesting product, solving a real pain in new and old generations. Keep it going!

@pierfpier.bsky.socialBluesky

Looks gorgeous!!! Would love this :)

u/kiwiandlover/eink

The e-ink is so smart bc you don't have another screen competing for your attention with notifications. I'd love to see how it tracks deep work hours without being intrusive.

u/Spaithr/ProductivityApps

Love the project. The dashboard as is is already nice.

u/Normal-Assignment-14r/fuckcars

Can we order this some how? This looks amazing.

u/Economy-King6474r/ProductivityApps

Please make a write up on how to make one of these. I'd love to have 1 of these! Or make a few and sell them here / Etsy…?

u/Just-Eddie83r/AppleWatchFitness

This is insanely cool, I kind of want one for my phone use.

u/Nick_Beardr/GetMotivated

I like those e-ink displays a lot. No fancy colors and effect, just raw information.

u/Infinite-Top-1043r/webdev

Damn, this is absolutely amazing! Definitely would look into it.

u/RoundAnalysis4r/digitalminimalism
2,388+
upvotes
347k+
views
230+
comments
97%
avg. upvote ratio

From Reddit and Bluesky.

For the curious

It’s open source, and it runs on a Raspberry Pi.

If you already tinker, you can build it yourself today: the display code is on GitHub. If you’d rather not, that’s what the waitlist is for, a finished version you plug in and forget about.

View the code

The list

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