Weathergotchi – an E-Paper Climate Logger

luanmuniz 115 points 24 comments July 15, 2026
github.com · View on Hacker News

Discussion Highlights (9 comments)

Waterluvian

I’ve been wanting to do some projects like this from the software side. I want an e-ink display + ESP32 inside a case. But I don’t want to do that myself for the nth time as it doesn’t feel novel or interesting. Is there any decent hardware option that begins fully open? Also: If I take very good care of my Weathergotchi, do I get to change the weather?

latexr

Calling this a tamagotchi is silly. The only thing this and tamagotchis have in common is that they’re small electronic devices with a screen (and even that tech is different). When you compare a project to something that it isn’t, you’re doing it a disservice. The people who are intrigued by the tamagotchi angle are disappointed, while the people who are uninterested in it (but might still like the project) won’t even give it a change. Everybody loses.

voidUpdate

I get the weather- part, but I don't get the -gotchi part... Do you have to keep the device alive by... seeing new types of weather?

swingboy

This doesn’t look as fun as a Tamagotchi.

world2vec

The YouTube video [0] is quite funny, I like when someone doesn't take themselves too seriously. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I44iGj7gLGA

zenith605

This is charming. E-paper is such a good fit for ambient data like this — always visible, no glow, basically no power. How often do you refresh the display, and does partial refresh ghosting become a problem over time?

inigyou

As opposed to the climategotchi, which just shows a dead guy on fire.

shadowpho

I see the antenna points straight at ground and buttons. Is the wifi ok?

markstos

I found some kind weather sensor like this in a creek in a sealed clear film canister-sized container. I took it home and looked up the part number. Looks like it was probably part of a network of sensors monitoring the forest health, but some ziptie broke on this one and ended up starting to get washed away. It ran on a big watch battery. I didn't try to get the data off it.. don't recall how data access worked for it.

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