What it does

unidex is made to be carried: clip it to your keys or your uni lanyard and glance at it between lectures. The screen is e-ink, so it reads in daylight like paper.

The home screen shows one app at a time: its icon, its name, and a dot for each app underneath. The top right shows the time and battery level. After 10 seconds without a press it goes into deep sleep. The screen keeps showing what it last drew, because e-ink needs no power for that.

WiFi is never on unless you ask for it: a Dex scan, a Notes recording or sync, or a time sync.

Two buttons: A and B. The press that wakes it from sleep counts too, so you don't have to press twice.

Your next class or event as a card: “IN 42 MIN”, “NOW, ENDS IN 20 MIN” or “TOMORROW 09:30” on top, the title in large type, the time and length, the place, and what comes after.

• A steps through the next five items. B opens the full details, including the event's notes.
• Hold B for the rest of today.
• Weekly classes come from a simple timetable file on the SD card.
• Apple Calendar: a small Mac helper sends the next 7 days of events whenever unidex is plugged in. You can also send a calendar file from the Tools page.

The countdown updates when you press a button, never on a timer, to save power.

Hold B and talk, up to three minutes. Let go to stop. Then, over WiFi, it:

• transcribes the recording (OpenAI Whisper),
• tidies it up with OpenAI or Claude, or leaves it as is: a short title, a one-line summary, a clean rewrite and topics. If you mention a dated plan (“dentist next Friday at 3”), it picks that out too,
• saves it to the SD card as Markdown, and
• if you want, pushes it to a GitHub repo, ready for Obsidian.

Recordings made without WiFi wait on the card and sync later. Your WiFi and API keys are set over USB on the Notes page, stored on the device only, and never shown again.

Notes needs your own OpenAI API key (about $0.006 per minute of audio).

A little creature built from five layers: a body (blob, cat, bear, bunny, frog or robot), eyes, a mouth, a hat and an extra. Dress it up and name it on the device, or design it on the Tools page and send it over USB. A says hi, and it blinks for a minute after your last press.

Hold B on the Pet to open Meet, and it meets the Pet on a friend's unidex:

• Open Meet on both, bring them close (within about 15 cm) and press B.
• The two screens become one room. The Pets say hi, visit each other's screen, chat and swap places, by themselves or when you press A and B. Pull them apart and each walks home.
• The first time, both are asked “Be friends?”. Two yeses and they're friends on both devices.
• Friends can send each other a badge. It shows up full screen first: B keeps it, A says no thanks.
• No WiFi or internet: they talk straight to each other over the radio, only while Meet is open.

Full-screen black-and-white images: name tags, logos, photos. A and B flip through them; hold B for a 3×3 picker. The last one shown stays on screen even with the battery out.

Make them with the badge maker on the Tools page: drop in any image, adjust it, and send it straight to the device over USB. Nothing is uploaded to the internet.

A WiFi network collection game. Press B to scan for about two seconds and you get “NEW!” with the best new find, or “nothing new”.

• Each network name is logged once, with a rarity: starter, common, uncommon or rare.
• A shows everything found, newest first. Hold B for the counts per rarity.
• It only listens and never connects to anything. Access point addresses are never stored, only a salted hash.

Pick two to six squares and press B. The highlight walks the grid, slows down and lands on a winner, picked up front by the chip's hardware random number generator. It keeps a tally of wins.

Four one-button games: Flappy, Dino, Stack and Jetpack. B is the only action, a tap or a hold, and the best score for each is kept on the device.

• Set the date and time by hand, if you have no WiFi or Mac.
• How long it stays awake: 10, 20, 30 or 60 seconds.
• Invert: white on black everywhere.
• Battery voltage, firmware version and storage used.
• Reset data, with a confirm for each kind.

• It deep-sleeps after 10 seconds without a press and wakes on either button.
• The clock keeps time through sleep and power-off.
• On USB it stays awake, so syncing and updating always find it.
• Charges over USB-C. A small bolt on the home screen shows USB power.

Battery life depends on how often you press things. It draws very little while asleep.

unidex arrives with the firmware installed. Everything else happens in Chrome or Edge on a computer, over a USB-C cable, with nothing to install:

• Install / Update: get the latest firmware. Update keeps your badges, Dex, events and settings.
• Tools: the badge maker, setting the clock, sending a calendar file, and the Mac calendar sync.
• Notes: WiFi, API keys and GitHub, each with a Test button that runs on the device.

The firmware, the browser installer and setup tools, and the Mac calendar helper are all on GitHub. You can read how it works, build it yourself or add your own app. It's free to use, fork and improve for non-commercial use (PolyForm Noncommercial 1.0.0); selling it needs written permission.

• Pre-orders closed on 10 October.
• Pre-ordered? Yours arrives by Friday 6 November.
• The full launch is next, date to come. Join the waitlist and you'll hear first when it opens.