🟧 DeskDot
Turn your iDotMatrix into a live desktop companion — the all-in-one app for your iDotMatrix.
110+ apps, 22 multiplayer games, live data from 70+ free sources, a studio for your browser and phone,
and an MCP server so AI agents like Claude can see the panel and drive it.
1,024 pixels. Zero subscriptions.
Download · Quick Start · First Five Minutes · The Studio · Games · Talk to It · Live Data · Spec Sheet · Under the Hood · What's Next · What's New
[!NOTE]
DeskDot is an independent, community-built project. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or supported by
the makers of iDotMatrix. "iDotMatrix" is used only to say which panels it works with; all trademarks belong to
their owners. DeskDot talks to your own panel over Bluetooth, and nothing is sent to the manufacturer.
🖥️ On Every Screen
⌚ Watch: my Wear OS launcher, workout app and watch faces wear DeskDot's table themes. See them on
my GitHub profile and on idotmatrix.com/showcase.
🔲 Why This Exists
The iDotMatrix is a lovely little 32×32 RGB pixel frame. Out of the box, its phone app lets you push a picture or a
GIF and walk away. DeskDot turns the same panel into something that's alive:
- a clock that knows your calendar;
- weather for where you actually are;
- your music with karaoke lyrics;
- a flight radar of the planes overhead;
- a Claude mascot that mirrors what your AI agent is doing;
- games your friends join by scanning a QR code;
- a rotating playlist of all of it, running all day.
It's built for the panel's real physics. Every rule about Bluetooth pacing, flow control, GIF budgets and colour
calibration was measured on the hardware (HARDWARE_PROTOCOL.md). It's also built so
that anyone, including an AI agent, can make a new app in one Python file.
Half the fun is that it looks like a toy. The other half is that it's a real-time engine with 4,400 tests.
🎛️ What It Does
- 🧠 One engine, one link: an async Python engine owns the panel's single Bluetooth connection.
- Its scheduler is "latest frame wins", with paced packets and ack flow control.
- It reconnects on its own and never shows the pairing screen by accident.
- 🖼️ 110+ apps:
- clocks, weather, markets, sports, space, quakes, flights, air quality and system stats;
- aurora watch, rain chance, wind compass, bike share, race countdown, asteroid flybys and Wikipedia trends;
- pets, generative art, 3D wireframes, a raycaster and falling sand;
- chess puzzles, trivia, a pixel canvas, text and fonts.
- They're all original pixel art, with no copied sprites.
- 🎮 25 games, 21 with real multiplayer: 2–4 players on the same Wi-Fi.
- Friends scan a QR code on the panel and their phone becomes the controller.
- There's a FIFA-style side select, plus intro screens, results screens and a red damage flash.
- 🎰 Casino night: 10 real casino games for a party around the panel: Roulette (European / American),
7 Up 7 Down, Blackjack, Baccarat, Slots (pull the lever on your phone), Texas Hold'em, Teen Patti, Andar Bahar,
the Big Six wheel and Housie (Tambola: the tickets on your phone, the caller on the panel).
- Friends join with the QR code; the host sets everyone's credits.
- The panel shows only the table, while phones show credits, the betting layout and private cards.
- Every round is provably fair, with commit–reveal and "Verify this round", and pays by the real rulebooks.
There is no house cut: every Hold'em, Teen Patti and Housie pot goes wholly to the players who win it.
- 21 table themes with their own felt patterns (from classic green and royal blue to Imperial jade, Gilded deco,
Festival of lights, Cyber grid, Sakura night and Galaxy) recolour the panel, every phone, the studio and the TV;
a "?" on every phone opens How to play, the rulebook and the payouts, with a guided tour for new players.
See docs/CASINO.md and the player's rulebook docs/CASINO_RULES.md.
- 📺 TV view: put any screen in the room on it — a smart-TV or Fire TV browser, a tablet, a projector. Studio →
Create → Show on TV → scan. A 1920 × 1080 broadcast: the full casino table with everyone's chips, the wheel
synced to the panel, game scoreboards and the live panel. See .
| What you get | Count | Details |
|---|
| Apps | 116 | time, live data, media, pets, games, creative, focus & agents, ambient |
| Games | 25 | every one with an AI that plays itself; most with 2–4 player modes, maps and themes |
| Live data sources | 70+ | Open-Meteo, USGS, adsb.lol, Launch Library 2, ESPN, Binance, Yahoo Finance and more |
| Phone controller layouts | 7 | d-pad, analog stick, swipe, tap zones, keyboard, gamepad, tilt |
| MCP tools | 21 | panel_snapshot, show_app, draw_pixel_art, notify, agent_state, playlist… |
| Automated tests | 4,400+ | protocol bytes, every app × every option, games, studio API, Android bridge |
🖼️ The Apps
| Category | Apps |
|---|
| 🕐 | Time | Clock (analog, digital, hero), Countdown, Day & Night world map, Five O'Clock Somewhere, Holidays, Progress, Sun & Moon |
| 📡 | Live data | Weather, What to Wear, Air Quality, Rain Radar, Earthquakes, Flight Radar, Tides & Surf, Planets Tonight, Space, Crypto Ticker, Stocks, Currency, Live Scores, Headlines, GitHub Graph, System Monitor, Home Assistant |
| 🎵 | Media | Now Playing (19 layouts: album art, karaoke and word-pop lyrics, vinyl, CD, cassette, VU meters, radio dial, mosaic…), Visualizer, Photo Frame, Gallery, Media Server, Screen & Camera Mirror |
| 🐾 | Pets & characters | Pet World (rooms, park, football), Pet, Pokédex, Pixel Avatar |
| 🎮 | Games | Pong, Breakout, Flappy, Dino, Racer, Snake, Tetris, 2048, Invaders, Maze Chase, Asteroids, Infinity, X and 0, Four Up, Mines, Starship, Light Cycles, Dig World, Neon Heat, Street Surge, Leaf Leap, Penguin Escape, Chess Puzzle, Trivia |
| 🎨 | Creative | Fly Brain 🪰, Synthwave Horizon, 3D Wireframe, Flocking Boids, Falling Sand, Neuromorphic Cortex, Raycaster, Emotes, Pixabots, Text, Font Lab, Canvas, Player Card, Composer |
| 🎯 | Focus & agents | Agent (Claude mascot), Focus Timer, Focus Pet, Eye Break, On Air, Calendar, Habits, Anki, Active App, CI radiator, OBS, Uptime, 3D Printer |
| 🌌 | Ambient | Ambient (rain, snow, plasma, fireworks…), Loops |
All media in this README is rendered by DeskDot itself from the simulated panel, drawn with an LED-panel look.
📥 Download
The easy way: install DeskDot like any other app. No Python, no terminal.
All files are on the latest release page, with
checksums.txt so you can check a download. Close the iDotMatrix phone app first: the panel talks to one app at a time.
After that, DeskDot updates itself. When there's a new version a small "Update available" sign appears at the
top. Click it to open the Updates window, read what's new, and press Install & restart. It downloads the new
version, checks that it's genuine and installs it. Your settings stay. (You can turn the automatic check off there.)
The installer isn't signed with a paid certificate yet, so Windows doesn't know it.
- Double-click
DeskDot-Setup-…-x64.exe.
- If a blue box says Windows protected your PC, click More info, then Run anyway.
- Click through the installer. It installs just for you (no admin password). Tick "Start DeskDot when I sign in"
if you want it always on.
- DeskDot opens the studio in your browser and puts a small icon in the tray (bottom right). If Windows asks
whether DeskDot may use the network, choose Private networks (only needed for friends' phones in games).
Your settings live in %LOCALAPPDATA%\DeskDot (they stay when you update or uninstall). Uninstall from
Settings → Apps.
The app isn't notarized by Apple yet, so the first start needs one extra step.
- Open the
.dmg and drag DeskDot into Applications.
- In Applications, right-click DeskDot → Open, then click Open in the box that appears. (On macOS 15 and
newer: if there's no Open button, go to System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll down and click
Open Anyway next to DeskDot.)
- Allow Bluetooth when macOS asks. DeskDot opens the studio in your browser.
You only do this once. Your settings live in ~/Library/Application Support/DeskDot.
- On the phone, open the release page and download
DeskDot-….apk.
- Tap the download. Android asks to allow your browser to install unknown apps: turn it on, go back, tap
Install.
- Open DeskDot and allow Nearby devices (Bluetooth) and notifications. More tips (battery settings, keeping it
running) are in android/README.md.
Updating from inside the app asks once more, this time to let DeskDot install apps. Had a test build of DeskDot
before 3.8? Uninstall it once first: the new app is signed with a different key.
Want the latest code, or to change DeskDot itself? Run it from source with the Quick Start below.
⚡ Quick Start
You need: an iDotMatrix 32×32 panel, a computer with Bluetooth LE, uv (it installs
Python 3.13 for you) and Node.js 20+ (only to build the studio once). Close the iDotMatrix phone app first: the
panel accepts one Bluetooth connection at a time.
git clone https://github.com/shivpatel2468/idotmatrix.git deskdot
cd deskdot
uv sync --extra mcp # engine + MCP server
(cd web && npm ci && npm run build) # the studio, built once
uv run deskdot scan # find your panel (IDM-xxxxxx)
uv run deskdot doctor # draws a test pattern on it
uv run deskdot serve # → open http://127.0.0.1:8765
No panel yet? uv run deskdot serve --sim runs everything against a simulated panel.
A Pi Zero 2 W / 3 / 4 / 5 has built-in Bluetooth LE and runs DeskDot at 1–3 W, 24/7.
# on your computer: build the studio, then copy the folder over
(cd web && npm ci && npm run build)
scp -r . [email protected]:~/deskdot
# on the Pi
cd ~/deskdot && bash scripts/install-pi.sh # installs uv + a systemd service
Then open http://raspberrypi.local:8765 from any device on your Wi-Fi. More hosts and trade-offs:
docs/DEPLOY.md.
The DeskDot Android app runs the whole Python engine on the phone (via Chaquopy) as a foreground service. It keeps
the panel connected with the screen off, restarts itself after a reboot, and shows the studio full screen.
It runs edge to edge under see-through system bars, opens with a short LED intro, and has a glass tab bar you can
drag between Panel, Apps, Presets and Settings.
[!NOTE]
Still a beta. Install it from the latest release
(DeskDot-….apk); build steps are in android/README.md.
Copy deskdot.example.toml to deskdot.toml; it's git-ignored, so it never leaves your
machine. Every key can also be set as an environment variable (DESKDOT_<KEY>). The two you'll care about:
address = "AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF" # your panel's MAC from `deskdot scan` (empty = first IDM-* found)
lan_studio = false # true = open the full studio to other devices on your Wi-Fi
🕐 The First Five Minutes
- Pick an app in the library on the left. It plays on the panel within a second, and the big preview in the
middle shows exactly what the LEDs show.
- Tweak it in the panel on the right. Every setting is live, and every app's form is generated from its schema.
Drag the glowing edge to resize the panel; the form re-flows to fit.
- Tap a preset in the dock ("Desk dashboard", "Chill", "All games"…) to rotate apps on a timer, or build your
own playlist. Drag the dock's glowing top edge to make it taller, or press ⤢ for a full-screen now-playing view.
- Press ▶ Play on any game. The AI is playing; touch an arrow key and you take over instantly. Press
B for the game's menu (modes, players, map, theme).
- Play with friends. Choose Play with friends, the panel shows a QR code, and your friends' phones become
controllers.
- Run the colour wizard (Settings → Display & colour). Five questions while looking at your panel, and photos,
album art and GIFs are colour-matched to it.
🎨 The Studio
Light or dark. The studio, phone pages, casino and TV come in a premium light theme (paper, porcelain and
gold leaf) and the original dark one — Settings → Display & colour → Studio theme, or the round key bottom-left on
phones. The panel connection lives behind the status pill at the top (Connection sheet: reconnect, move it to
this tab, release it).
The studio on a phone (bottom tabs) · the game controller friends get after scanning the QR code.
🎮 Games & Multiplayer
Every game plays itself when nobody is touching it, so they make great screensavers. When you press a key, you're
in.
- Modes for 1–4 players: versus, co-op, free-for-all and team modes. Classics get fun modes too: Snake battle
royale, Tetris garbage duels, a maze chase where your friends are the ghosts, Flappy and Dino races.
- Home menu on the panel (press B): mode, players, map and theme. There's a FIFA-style side select where
each controller moves left or right to pick a team (1v1, 2v1, 2v2), plus an intro countdown, a results screen and
a red damage flash.
- Maps and genre themes for every game. A test checks that gameplay colours never blend into the background.
- Controllers: keyboard (two players can share one), gamepads (Xbox / PlayStation / Switch via the browser), and
phones with seven layouts. Friends just need the same Wi-Fi: only the controller pages are reachable from the
network, not the studio.
| Controller | Where | Best for |
|---|
| ⌨️ Keyboard | studio | everything (arrows / WASD + Space / Shift) |
| 🎮 Gamepad | studio | racers, platformers (standard browser mapping) |
| 🕹️ Analog stick | phone | Pong, Asteroids, Neon Heat |
| ✛ D-pad | phone | Tetris, X and 0, Four Up, Mines |
| 👆 Swipe | phone | Snake, Light Cycles, 2048 |
| 👇 Tap zones | phone | Flappy, Dino, Street Surge |
| 📐 Tilt | phone (HTTPS only) | racing |
🤖 Talk to It — AI agents & MCP
DeskDot ships an MCP server, a thin client over the engine's HTTP API, so Claude Code, Claude Desktop or any MCP
client can see the panel and drive it:
{ "mcpServers": { "deskdot": { "command": "uv", "args": ["run", "--project", "/path/to/deskdot", "deskdot-mcp"] } } }
| Tool | What the agent can do |
|---|
panel_snapshot | look at what's on the LEDs right now (as an image) |
list_apps · show_app · update_app_settings · app_action | run any app, change any setting |
show_text · draw_pixel_art · set_pixels · show_image · compose | put anything on the panel |
notify · set_indicator · push_custom_app | alerts, status LEDs, AWTRIX-style custom apps |
agent_state | drive the Claude mascot (thinking, working, waiting for you, done) |
playlist · set_playlist · presets · autopilot · set_display · panel_status | run the show |
The Claude Code hook makes the mascot react to your coding session in real time.
Details: docs/MCP.md. New apps are one file each: docs/APP_SDK.md.
A search bar for the whole desk: uv run deskdot launcher puts a Spotlight-style command bar on
Ctrl+Alt+Space (apps with live previews, presets, games, brightness, "let the fly play"); on a Mac there's the
native DeskDot Bar menu-bar app, and a Raycast extension for both. See docs/LAUNCHERS.md.
📡 What's on the Panel
Location-aware apps follow one shared location: your setting, or a city lookup, or IP geolocation.
(🟢 no key · 🟡 optional key or local service · 🔴 paid)
| Layer | What you get | Source | Auth |
|---|
| 🌦️ Weather · Wear · Air | conditions, forecast, AQI, UV, pollen, what to wear | Open-Meteo | 🟢 |
| 🌧️ Rain Radar | animated precipitation over your area | RainViewer + Open-Meteo Elevation | 🟢 |
| ✈️ Flight Radar | aircraft overhead on a radar scope | adsb.lol, adsb.fi, OpenSky | 🟢 |
| 🌋 Earthquakes | world map + "near me" alerts | USGS | 🟢 |
| 🚀 Space | next launch countdown, ISS, people in space | Launch Library 2, wheretheiss.at | 🟢 |
| 🌅 Sun & Moon · Planets | sunrise, golden hour, moon phase, planets tonight | computed locally + sunrise-sunset.org | 🟢 |
| 🌊 Tides & Surf | tide curve, swell | Open-Meteo Marine | 🟢 |
| 📈 Crypto · Stocks · Currency | tickers, sparklines, converter | Binance, Yahoo Finance / Nasdaq, Frankfurter | 🟢 |
| 🏏 Live Scores | football, cricket, NBA, F1… | ESPN public scoreboards | 🟢 |
| 📰 Headlines · Daily · Trivia | HN, dev.to, quotes, jokes, facts, quizzes | Hacker News, ZenQuotes, Open Trivia DB… | 🟢 |
| 🎵 Now Playing · Lyrics | album art, karaoke lyrics | your OS media session, LRCLIB | 🟢 |
| 🖼️ Photo Frame · Pokédex | museum art, animals, Pokémon sprites | The Met, Cleveland Museum, PokéAPI… | 🟢 |
| 🌌 Aurora · Asteroids · Earth Events | Kp index + aurora map, close approaches, fires/storms/volcanoes | NOAA SWPC, NASA/JPL, NASA EONET | 🟢 |
| 🌂 Rain Chance · Wind Compass | next-12-hour rain odds, wind direction and gusts | Open-Meteo | 🟢 |
| ₿ Bitcoin Network · Crypto Market |
The full list, with the APIs we tried and rejected (and why): DATA_SOURCES.md.
💡 Use Cases
| You are… | DeskDot becomes… |
|---|
| 🧑💻 A developer | a CI radiator, a GitHub graph, a Claude mascot that tells you when your agent needs you, a Pomodoro |
| 🎧 Working from home | an "On Air" light for calls, a calendar countdown, eye-break reminders, a focus pet |
| 🎮 Hosting friends | a 4-player arcade on the coffee table, with phones as controllers |
| 🏡 A smart-home tinkerer | a Home Assistant status screen, ntfy alerts from anywhere, AWTRIX-compatible custom apps |
| 🎨 A pixel artist | a canvas, a font lab, a GIF/photo frame with real colour calibration |
| 🌍 A data nerd | a wall of live flights, quakes, launches, markets and weather |
| 🤖 Building with AI | a physical display your agent can draw on, notify through and check with a snapshot |
🧩 Compatibility
| Host | Status | Notes |
|---|
| Windows 10/11 | ✅ Verified on hardware | Bluetooth LE via WinRT; sleep/wake hand-off |
| Raspberry Pi OS / Debian / Ubuntu | 🟡 Supported, installer untested on a real Pi | BlueZ; scripts/install-pi.sh sets up a systemd service |
| macOS | 🟡 Should work, untested | CoreBluetooth hides MAC addresses, so DeskDot finds the panel by its IDM- name |
| Android 8+ (64-bit) | 🧪 Beta — runs on a real phone (Android 14, 120 Hz) | the Android app runs the whole engine on the phone |
| iPhone / iPad | ❌ as a host | iOS suspends background apps; use it as a studio or controller instead |
| Any browser | ✅ Studio & controller | Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Safari; gamepads in desktop browsers |
What works where — every app, provider and setting per OS, plus studio and phone-controller browsers: docs/COMPATIBILITY.md. The studio greys out what this host can't do.
| Panel | Status |
|---|
iDotMatrix 32×32 RGB (advertises IDM-xxxxxx) | ✅ Verified |
| Other iDotMatrix sizes (16×16, 64×64) | ❓ Untested; the protocol is shared, but every app is designed for 32×32 |
📐 Spec Sheet — the iDotMatrix panel
What DeskDot measured on a real unit (Windows 11, 2026-09-24 → 2026-10-01). Vendor specs vary by seller; these are
the numbers that matter to software.
| Property | Value |
|---|
| Display | 32 × 32 RGB LEDs (1,024 pixels), origin top-left |
| Brightness | 5–100 %, plus screen on/off, flip 180°, night (eco) mode |
| Connection | Bluetooth LE; advertises as IDM-xxxxxx; one central at a time |
| GATT | write 0000fa02-…, notify 0000fa03-… (acks used for flow control) |
| Packet size | up to 514 B per write (MTU 517); messages split into 4 KiB chunks |
| Live frames | PNG in DIY mode: ~9 fps for simple frames (1 packet), ~5–6 fps for full scenes |
| Native animation | GIFs stored on the panel and looped by its own firmware: smooth at ≤ 10 fps, 240+ frames, ≤ 40 KB |
| GIF upload | ~16 KB/s; one ack per 4 KiB chunk |
| Built-in modes | clock (8 styles), countdown, chronograph, scoreboard, effects, solid colour |
| Quirks DeskDot handles | pairing screen on disconnect · DIY-mode blink · panel freezes if GIFs arrive too often · unpaced bursts silently dropped · photos need gamma + white-balance calibration |
- Paced packets. An unpaced burst of writes is silently dropped, so there's an 18 ms gap between packets.
- One frame in flight. Waiting for every ack gives ~2.6 fps, while pipelining one frame gives ~9 fps.
- Latest frame wins. Frames are never queued FIFO; a newer frame replaces an unsent one.
- GIF uploads are never abandoned mid-way (that blanks the panel), and they cool down for 3 s between uploads
(frequent uploads freeze the firmware).
- Never disconnect voluntarily. The device layer reconnects with backoff.
Byte-level reference: docs/HARDWARE_PROTOCOL.md.
🔧 Under the Hood
flowchart LR
subgraph Clients
S[Studio<br/>React + Vite] -- WebSocket --> E
P[Phone controllers<br/>/p/CODE] -- WebSocket --> E
M[MCP server<br/>Claude & agents] -- HTTP --> E
H[Hooks · ntfy · Home Assistant] -- HTTP --> E
end
E[Engine<br/>FastAPI · asyncio] --> R[Runtime<br/>playlist · overlays · hand-off]
R --> A[Apps<br/>render < 2 ms · baked clips]
A --> PR[Providers<br/>45+ live sources]
R --> D[Device layer<br/>latest-frame-wins · paced · acks]
D -- Bluetooth LE --> X[(iDotMatrix<br/>32×32)]
src/deskdot/
├── engine/ # runtime, scheduler, playlist, presets, hand-off, app base classes
├── device/ # the only code that touches Bluetooth: protocol bytes, BLE, Android bridge, simulator
├── apps/ # 116 apps — one file each (games in games_*.py on a shared GameApp framework)
├── providers/ # live data: weather, flights, quakes, markets, sports, media, system…
├── gfx/ # Frame primitives, bitmap fonts, colour calibration, GIF encoder, world map, sprites
├── server.py # HTTP + WebSocket API (docs/API.md)
├── multiplayer.py # lobby, QR rooms, LAN gate, phone controller
└── mcp_server.py # MCP tools over the HTTP API
web/ # the studio (React 19 + TypeScript + Tailwind v4)
android/ # the Android host app (Kotlin + Chaquopy)
tests/ # 4,400+ tests — every app × every option renders without data
The rules that keep it smooth (enforced by tests and CLAUDE.md):
- Nothing leaves the 32×32 grid, and
render() is pure and under 2 ms.
- Loops are baked clips; only live data streams.
- 1-bit bitmap fonts only.
- Design colours are for LEDs; photos get calibrated once.
- Settings are pydantic models, so the studio builds every form from the schema.
Decisions and why: docs/adr/.
🔑 API Keys & Costs
Nothing here costs money, and you need no key to start. Every built-in data source is free and keyless. Keys or
local services only come in when you connect your own things:
| Provider | Why | Get it |
|---|
| GitHub token (optional) | higher rate limit for GitHub Graph / CI | github.com/settings/tokens (read-only) |
| Home Assistant | show entities, control DeskDot from automations | a long-lived token from your HA profile |
| OBS · AnkiConnect · OctoPrint/Moonraker · Jellyfin/Plex | on-air light, reviews, print progress, now watching | your local service |
| Gemini (optional) | "Draw with AI" in the studio | aistudio.google.com |
Secrets are typed into the studio. They're stored only in data/state.json on your machine (git-ignored), masked
(••••••) in every API response and snapshot, and never logged.
📋 Responsible & Open
- Local-first. DeskDot runs on your computer, Pi or phone. There's no account, no cloud and no telemetry.
- LAN-closed by default. Other devices on your Wi-Fi can only reach the game-controller pages; set
lan_studio = true to open the full studio.
- No copied assets. All pixel art, characters and fonts are original. Photos and sprites (museum art, Pokémon)
are fetched at runtime from their public APIs, never bundled.
- Not affiliated with iDotMatrix's maker. See the note at the top. Found a security issue? See
SECURITY.md.
🧭 What's Next
🪰 A fruit-fly brain that plays the apps — first version is in
The headline goal: wire DeskDot to the first complete map of an adult fruit-fly brain.
In October 2024 the FlyWire consortium, a Princeton-led team whose AI reconstruction and 3D viewer were built with
Google Research, published the whole-brain connectome of Drosophila melanogaster in Nature: 139,255 neurons
and about 54.5 million synapses, every connection traced.
The plan is a simplified spiking simulation of that wiring:
- What it sees: the panel's 32×32 frame goes into the fly's visual system, like a compound eye.
- What it does: its descending motor neurons steer Snake, Flappy or Racer.
- What you see: the panel shows only the game; the studio shows the brain itself, in 3D, firing as it plays.
You could play against a fly, watch it learn which inputs matter, or let it interact with any app.
What's already here:
-
The Fly Brain app: a fly hunts fruit and dodges a looming swatter.
-
A "Fruit-fly brain" pilot for every game.
-
The 3D Fly view in the studio: when a fly starts playing, the side panels slide shut and two live 3D scenes
open beside the panel:
- Left: its visual circuit, layer by layer, with signals travelling the wiring and every spike flashing.
- Right: a 3D fruit fly on a mechanical keyboard, stomping each key its neurons press, plus a keystroke log.
Quality presets (Auto adapts to your GPU), bloom, particles, themes, cameras, fly looks and keyboard styles are all
in Graphics.
Both are driven by a real-time model of exactly this circuit: T4/T5 motion detectors, HS/VS cells, LPLC2 → giant
fibre, and descending neurons. It sees nothing but the pixels. Its wiring is modelled on the circuit, not yet
loaded from FlyWire's synapse counts. That's the next step, explained in docs/FLY_BRAIN.md.
Sources: FlyWire · Nature, 2 Oct 2024 · NIH Research Matters
Also on the roadmap
- 📱 Android app out of beta: tested on real phones, with an APK on the Releases page.
- 🍓 Raspberry Pi image: flash it, plug it in, done.
- 🧩 ESP32 bridge: a Wi-Fi→BLE puck that plays baked loops from a DeskDot server.
- 🎙️ Voice: "show the weather", "start a 25-minute focus", from Alexa or Google via Home Assistant.
- 🖥️ Bigger panels: layouts for 64×64 iDotMatrix units.
More: docs/ROADMAP.md · docs/IDEAS.md.
📚 Documentation
Built by Shiv Patel · idotmatrix.com · MIT License
If DeskDot made your desk a little more alive, a ⭐ helps other panel owners find it.
1,024 pixels. Zero subscriptions.
