Notes on the $50 DIY Muse Charm

A small open-source wearable built around an e-paper display and a cheap microcontroller made the rounds this week — total parts cost around $50, and it shows a tiny companion character that reacts to your coding sessions.

What I like about it is the restraint: no camera, no microphone array, no subscription. It is a desk toy with a network cable’s worth of ambition, and it is all the better for it.

The wearables that survive will be the ones that do one small thing with charm. This one does.