Gareth Halfacree's Hobby Tech
Welcome to Gareth Halfacree's Hobby Tech on Gemini. Here you'll find lightweight copies of the articles I write regarding hobbyist technologies from single-board computers and vintage computing to electronics and, yes, even smolweb technologies like Gemini.
Hobby Tech originally began as a monthly column in Dennis Publishing's Custom PC Magazine; since the magazine's closure I've been publishing digitally in its place.
As there is - and will continue to be - absolutely zero user tracking on this site, I'm curious to see how many people it reaches. If you have a minute, please drop me an email - comments, criticisms, and questions welcome. On the latter front, if I get enough interest I may even add a Gemini-exclusive letters page to the mix.
mailto:gemini@halfacree.co.uk
Friday 24th April 2026
2026-04-24 Canonical Launches Ubuntu 26.04 LTS "Resolute Raccoon," Its Latest Long-Term Support Linux Distro
2026-04-24 Chris Hackmann's Time Frog Color Crams a Real, Working Nintendo Game Boy Color Into a Watch
2026-04-24 The LightInk Watch Pairs a Solar Panel with ePaper to Deliver Theoretically Infinite Battery Life
2026-04-24 Supplyframe Sells Tindie, Now in Its Second Week of Site Outage, to Parties Unknown
Thursday 23rd April 2026
2026-04-23 Andy Warburton's GR3ML1N Is a Handheld Espressif ESP32 Cyberdeck You Can Build Yourself
2026-04-23 WeCreat's Lumos Ultra Delivers Multi-Material High-Speed Etching with Dual UV and MOPA Lasers
2026-04-23 ProtoCentral's Move Ultralight Is a Screen-Free, Distractionless, Open Source Smart Fitness Wearable
2026-04-23 David Pride's Qwatch Is a Fully-Customizable, 3D-Printable Espressif ESP32 Smartwatch with Style
2026-04-23 Windows 9x Subsystem for Linux Brings Your Linux Software to Microsoft's Peak-'90s Operating Systems
Wednesday 22nd April 2026
Everybody in the Halfacree household is ill, so I'm taking the day to parent. Back tomorrow!
Tuesday 21st April 2026
2026-04-21 Canonical Brings Ubuntu 24.04 LTS to MediaTek's Genio 520, 720
2026-04-21 Chris Combs' Latest Artwork Tells a Six-Minute Climate-Change Story on a Four-Digit LCD Display
2026-04-21 TinyGo 0.41.0 Brings Wireless Support on Espressif's ESP32 Chips and Arduino UNO Q Compatibility
2026-04-21 Christian Hirsch Taps Nordic's nRF9151 to Bring Broad Connectivity to the MicroMod Ecosystem
2026-04-21 Set Chat Aglow with Mike Pfeiffer's Twitch-Controlled WLED Lighting Backdrop
Monday 20th April 2026
2026-04-20 M5Stack Unveils the CardputerZero, an All-In-One Pocket-Sized Gadget Powered by the Raspberry Pi CM0
2026-04-20 Przemek Wasinski Has Automated Plane-Spotting, via an ADS-B-Tracking Motorized Camera
2026-04-20 Seeed Studio Officially Launches the reBot Arm B601, Releases Design Files for DIY Robot Builders
2026-04-20 The YARH.IO M4 Is a Raspberry Pi-Powered Handheld You Can — Finally — Build Yourself
2026-04-20 Matthias Wandel Turns Metal into Proximity Sensors with the Raspberry Pi Pico's PIO Blocks
Friday 17th April 2026
Youngest *and* eldest kids managed to be ill at the same time, so I took a day.
Thursday 16th April 2026
2026-04-16 Zerowriter Creator Adam Wilk Unveils the Zerowriter Pi Bright Display ePaper HAT for Raspberry Pi
2026-04-16 ESPHome 2026.4.0 Brings a Big Performance Boost for the Espressif ESP32 — with Breaking Changes Too
2026-04-16 Particle Launches Its M-HAT, Bringing Easy Cellular Connectivity to the Raspberry Pi Family
2026-04-16 Matteo Fenu's Raspberrarium Turns Two LEDs Into a Convincing Day-Night and Lunar Cycle Simulator
2026-04-16 Zephyr 4.4.0 Brings OpenRISC Support, Performance Gains, and Wi-Fi Direct Capabilities
Wednesday 15th April 2026
2026-04-15 Raspberry Pi OS Makes a Shift Away From Passwordless sudo to Boost Security
2026-04-15 MNT Research Brings the Open-Hardware Reform to a Whole New Form Factor: Ultra-Slim Desktops
2026-04-15 Lime Microsystems Unveils the LimeSDR Micro, an M.2 Expandable SDR with Vector Accelerator
2026-04-15 Aaron Christophel Ports Doom to a Toaster — And You'd Better Play Well if You Want Unburnt Toast
Tuesday 14th April 2026
2026-04-14 Dr. PD, The USB Power Delivery Doctor, Is In — And Makes USB Power Supply Debugging a Cinch
2026-04-14 CHWTT's Second-Generation Fader Deck Is a Slick Way to Handle Per-Application Volume Control
2026-04-14 Tim Eastwood Unveils the JetDeck SCOUT, a Raspberry Pi-Powered Handheld Running Mainstream Software
2026-04-14 Christine Farion's Circuit-Sculpture Smart Bracelet Can Keep You "Fashionably on Task"
Monday 13th April 2026
2026-04-13 cURL Doom Puts Id Software's Classic in Your Text-Only Terminal — Via an HTTP Connection
2026-04-13 Cydintosh Turns Your Cheap Yellow Display Into a Macintosh Plus — And Connects it to Home Assistant
2026-04-13 The CyberFold Is a Slick, Sleek, Pocket-Sized Clamshell Built Around the Raspberry Pi Compute Module
2026-04-13 Soulscircuit Redesigns Its Pilet Handhelds, Nearly a Year Overdue, To Accept the Raspberry Pi CM5
Friday 10th April 2026
2026-04-10 Simon Shimel's Bee Write Back Is a Compact "Writerdeck" for Late-Night Journaling
2026-04-10 Niccolò Venerandi's M5Stack PaperS3-Powered Mirtillo Could Be "The Ultimate Productivity Device"
2026-04-10 Uladzimir Kazakevich's Sleeper-Build Toshiba T1200 Upgrade Hides a Raspberry Pi Inside
2026-04-10 The MiSCUSI "Minifies" the Apple II SCSI Card with a Swap to Surface-Mount Technology
Thursday 9th April 2026
2026-04-09 Got a Raspberry Pi AIY Voice Bonnet Gathering Dust? This Software Update Gets It Working Again
2026-04-09 Keychron's Nick Xu Releases Keyboard, Mouse Design Files — But Warns They're Not Open Source
2026-04-09 Amazon Calls Time on its Earliest Kindle Models, Ceases Support for Everything Prior to 2013
2026-04-09 The AnyLaser X1 Desktop Engraver Aims to Prove That "Anyone Can Have a Laser"
2026-04-09 Bryan Keller Brings Apple's Mac OS X to a Whole New Platform: The Nintendo Wii
Wednesday 8th April 2026
It's my birthday, so no articles today!
Tuesday 7th April 2026
2026-04-07 Arduino UNO Q Owners Get a New App Lab with Speech Recognition, a "Mission Control," and More
2026-04-07 Dr. Scott M. Baker Unveils NostOS, the Nostalgia Operating System, for RC2014 Microcomputers
2026-04-07 Sid Rockett's Arena Digitalis Turns the Arduino Nano R4 Into a "Glitch Machine" Granular Synth
2026-04-07 The Obscura One Is a Tiny Nostalgia-Driven Pocket Camera You Can Build for Just $35
Monday 6th April 2026
2026-04-06 Arduino Cloud Gets a Dark Mode, Temporary Trash Can for Easy Undeletion, and More in New Update
2026-04-06 Kai Pereira's Ticket-Shaped Raspberry Pi RP2040-Powered Badge Boasts a "Zero-Power" Design
2026-04-06 The RaspberryFluke Offers Low-Cost Network Diagnostics with an ePaper Twist
2026-04-06 Alexey Frunze's SediCi PC Is a 16-bit Microcomputer on an FPGA — with a Custom-Built CPU
Friday 3rd April 2026
2026-04-03 Embedded World 2026: A Field Report on the Latest in Embedded Electronics
2026-04-03 LCL Li's Tiny Capcom Arcade Cabinet Uses a Period-Appropriate, Though Scaled-Down, CRT Display
2026-04-03 Google Partners with Back Market to Keep Laptops out of Landfil, Launches a $3 ChromeOS Flex Kit
Thursday 2nd April 2026
2026-04-02 Travis Lin's DSTIKE-DA Is an Espressif ESP32-Powered Bluetooth Speaker with an Unusual Form Factor
2026-04-02 Canonical Bumps Ubuntu 26.04 LTS's System Requirements, Now Asks for 6GB of RAM
2026-04-02 Researchers Draw Inspiration From Bats for an Ultrasonic "Perception Stack" Targeting Tiny Drones
2026-04-02 The Flash Bee Keeps an Eye on the Skies with Lightning Detection and Tracking Out to Nearly 26 Miles
2026-04-02 Richard Huberjohn's Distance-Measuring Desk Robot Is Ready for a Game of Catch
Wednesday 1st April 2026
2026-04-01 Raspberry Pi Hikes Prices By Up to $150 as the AI Bubble Hits Hard, Confirms Raspberry Pi 6 Plans
2026-04-01 Arpan Mondal's Space Drums Combine Espressif's ESP32 with IMU Sensors and Computer Vision
2026-04-01 Bambu Lab Retires the X1 Series of FFF 3D Printers — But Promises Spares Out to 2031
2026-04-01 LCL Li's "Cold Light Laptop" Uses a Custom Graphics Card with a Beautiful Electroluminescent Display
2026-04-01 VisiPrint Combines Material and Model Photos to Offer Better Preview of Your FFF 3D Print Plans
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