The technical bit.

One screen, four buttons, no distractions.

A 5.83" four-color e-paper panel in a hand-finished case, sized to sit beside a laptop without competing with it. Always on. Refreshes every fifteen minutes. The rest of the time, it draws zero current and stays exactly where it was.

The drawing above is a working illustration, not a photo. Photographs of the real hardware go here as the first units come off the bench, no renders standing in.

What's inside.

A Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W behind the panel. Quiet, low-power, and capable of running the dashboard for years on a USB-C cable. Black anodized aluminum bezel on the front, black plastic back housing behind. A small steel plate in the base gives the device weight; it sits like a paperweight.

Display

5.83" GDEY0583F41 e-paper · 648 × 480 px · 4-color (BWRY)

Refresh time

~18 seconds, every 15 minutes (between refreshes the panel draws zero current)

Processor

Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W (1GHz quad-core, 512MB)

Wireless

2.4GHz Wi-Fi · WPA2 Personal & Enterprise (eduroam)

Buttons

4 × tactile switches (cycle view, mark complete, cycle theme, sync now)

Indicator

Single red LED (blinks during refresh, solid for a second when complete)

Power

USB-C, 5V · ~0.4W average · ~2W peak during refresh

Dimensions

~150 × 125 × 35 mm (pre-prototype estimate, sized for the new 4:3 panel · final number lands once the first unit is on the bench)

Weight

~280 g (most of which is steel ballast in the base)

Materials

Black anodized aluminum bezel, black plastic back housing, steel base plate

What arrives.

Hand-packed in kraft cardboard. No plastic clamshells. No "quick-start guide" with stock photos. Just the device, the cable, and a single folded sheet of cream paper that explains setup in fourteen lines.

Not in the box: no power adapter (most desks have a spare USB-C plug). No mounting hardware (it's a paperweight). No printed manual beyond the setup card. The rest of the documentation will live online once the first fifty ship.

Schools that work.

Margin pulls assignments from the LMS your school already uses. We test against each platform on each campus before adding it to the supported list. What works in Canvas at one school sometimes breaks at another.

• University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Canvas · Calendar
• Northern Illinois University Blackboard · beta

Margin works with any school running Canvas, Blackboard, D2L, or Moodle. Calendar events sync from anything that publishes an iCal feed: Apple, Google, Outlook, Proton, Notion, and most schools' official academic calendars. Don't see yours? Tell us →

See yours up there? Join the waitlist →

Plug in, pick a network. The rest takes a few minutes.

First boot starts a small captive Wi-Fi network called margin-setup. Connect to it from your phone, pick your school's network from the list, enter your campus credentials, and the device reboots into its normal life. Getting on Wi-Fi takes about ninety seconds; full setup, including the browser plugin and Todoist, runs five to ten minutes.

Power input

USB-C, 5V · works with any phone or laptop charger

Idle draw

~0.4W (roughly a tenth of a Wi-Fi router)

Network

2.4GHz Wi-Fi · WPA2 Personal · WPA2 Enterprise (eduroam) (username/password authentication)

Setup

Captive portal on first boot · no app required (phone or laptop browser, ~90 seconds)

Recovery

Hold all four buttons for 10 seconds to reset

Updated while you sleep.

Margin runs a small Linux-based dashboard built on a public theme protocol. Updates check once a day, around 4 AM local time, and apply only if the integrity check passes. You'll see nothing. The device just refreshes with the new version on the next regular cycle.

The five themes that ship in the box are the start, not the end. The theme protocol is open: anyone can write their own theme, and we're considering a small gallery for community themes after the first fifty ship. If that's interesting to you, sign up for the developer list when it opens.

Operating system

Linux (Raspberry Pi OS Lite, headless)

Dashboard

Python · pluggable theme system (five themes ship by default)

Data path

Browser plugin writes to Todoist; device reads from Todoist (assignments never pass through a Margin server · our sync service holds your account email, plan, device settings + encrypted Todoist token, never your tasks)

Requirements

Free Todoist account (why we picked Todoist)

Updates

Daily over-the-air, 4 AM local · signed manifests · automatic rollback on failure

Privacy

No analytics. No telemetry. No assignment data on any server we run.

The boring trust bit.

We back every device with a one-year limited warranty against manufacturing defects. If something breaks in normal use within the first year, we repair or replace it. No hoops, no proof-of-purchase scavenger hunt.

Price

Expected $189 (final number set at the Kickstarter launch · the parts run about $80; the rest is us pushing the fix when your school changes Canvas — the full math →)

Warranty

1 year, limited (covers manufacturing & component defects)

Returns

30 days, full refund (device must arrive in working condition; you cover return shipping)

Repairs

We repair them ourselves, in small batches

Right to repair

Schematics and case STLs published after the first fifty ship