Friends, there will likely come a time in your life when you have trouble sleeping. When this happens, it may behoove you to do some writing, any kind of writing. But consider that a physical journal will force you to turn past pages you’ve already filled, which may leave you deflated if you happen to read them.
So the answer lies in a sort of journalistic deposit box. That’s basically what we have here. [Simon Shimel]’s Bee Write Back writerdeck was inspired by sleepless nights, so you know it’s effective. The form factor is so great for [Simon], in fact, that he has developed more apps and functions for it, including a Claude client.
Inside is a Raspberry Pi Zero 2w, and input comes from an Air40 keyboard with quite awesome low-profile key caps. The display is a 5.5″ AMOLED, which leaves just enough room for a pair of the cutest bees ever. Be sure to check out the short video below for the build guide to accompany the build guide (PDF), and head over to GitHub for the full details.
Want to go even smaller and BYOK? Here’s a cheap writerdeck with an e-ink display.
Thanks to [Kaushlesh Chandel] for the tip!
That’s a nice little machine. Though it does inspire me to grab one of my old Psions and use it for the same purpose!
write decks are for weak people NOT STRONG ENOUGH to avoid switching to NSFW pages as e. g. hackday. LOL
I love when people build the tools they want and this looks like a well engineered project.
Personally, I don’t understand the appeal of this form factor though, especially for writing.
Any thoughts?
I’d need a wider format keyboard. Trying to use the smaller for factor setups make me crank my wrists out at an odd angle. bet the case could be altered to support a split board with the halves angled a bit.
Reminds me of a Make magazine had an article way back in the day (18 years maybe?) on a keyboard built for their left hand. They used combinations of buttons mounted on a conformal base that was molded to the shape of their hand at rest. For example to get a capital letter “A” they tapped a combination of fingers. The digit 9 was a different combo. Apparently it made for an interesting midi instrument too.
Anyway. It’d make for a neat peripheral for this writerdeck.