TRMNL: Blog

Meta Portal is now TRMNL

2026-07-09T00:00:00+00:00

Meta ended support for 1,000,000+ of their "Portal" devices, a modified Android tablet designed for video calls through Messenger and WhatsApp.

thankfully they announced support for Android Debug Bridge, which lets owners build and share apps, unlocking value from the underlying hardware.

in TRMNL tradition we picked up a used Portal for just $19 (+ shipping) on eBay and made it a personal dashboard. shout out to community member JackR for the suggestion and assistance.

how it works

Meta Portals run Android
the TRMNL community, specifically Hossain Khan, maintains a TRMNL Android app
you can install these apps on a Meta Portal with a USB-C cable, no coding required

get started

the guide below should take no more than 10 minutes.

step 1 - buy a Portal

any model / generation will work, in this post we'll showcase a Gen2, 10" display. if you get something else we may need to adjust the available device models, just send us a live chat or email support@trmnl.com.

step 2 - set up the Portal

go through the normal onboarding, connecting WiFi and logging into either a Facebook or WhatsApp account. you cannot access Settings unless you log into a social network (i know, i know...).

if your device does not arrive in "setup mode," it's easy to perform a factory reset.

step 3 - enable Android Debug Bridge

from your Portal's home screen, navigate to the Apps tab, then tap the Settings icon, scroll to the Debug section, and tap again to Enable ADB.

you will likely be asked to provide your 4-digit pin from Step 1.

step 4 - connect the Portal to your computer

plug a USB-C cable into your Meta Portal. i spent 10 minutes finding my port on the Gen2 -- it's behind the speaker. each Portal is different.

credit: r/FacebookPortal

you should see a prompt on your Portal, asking you to "Allow USB debugging." tap to allow. if you don't see this prompt, or it disappears, or you accidentally hit cancel, just turn off your Meta Portal (disconnect power), remove the USB-C cable, and plug it back in + try again from Step 3.

step 5 - install Android Platform Tools

if you're on a Mac and you regularly write code, you may have Homebrew installed, in which case you can brew install --cask android-platform-tools .

if you're not on Mac, or you do not use Homebrew, download the dev tools here under Downloads:
https://developer.android.com/tools/releases/platform-tools

this is a relatively small (16mb) zip file. double click to expand it on your computer and you should see a short list of executable files inside:

step 6 - download the TRMNL android app

TRMNL has a couple Android apps developed by community member Hossain Khan. one is for turning a tablet into a device, the other is for managing multiple devices. we want the first app called TRMNL Display.

download the latest release's "APK" file, which is a bundle of the TRMNL Display application, here:
https://github.com/usetrmnl/trmnl-android/releases

at the time of writing i'm downloading the file called "trmnl-v2.11.0.apk" from the v2.11.0 release.

TRMNL Display - APK file

step 7 - install TRMNL on Meta Portal

it's time to open up a terminal (console) on your computer. if you're on Mac, hit cmd+space and search for "terminal," then hit enter.

if you installed the Android Platform Tools via Homebrew...

navigate to wherever you downloaded the APK file (e.g. cd ~/Downloads)
run adb install trmnl-v2.11.0.apk

if you installed the Android Platform Tools by downloading the zip file...

navigate to wherever you un-zipped the "platform-tools" folder (see picture in Step 5)
copy or move the trmnl-v2.11.0.apk file you downloaded to the same folder
open your terminal/console and navigate to that folder (containing APK + executable files)
run ./adb install trmnl-v2.11.0.apk

you should see output like this:

Ryans-Mac-mini:Downloads ryanckulp$ adb install trmnl-v2.11.0.apk 
Performing Streamed Install
Success

see Troubleshooting below if you don't get a success message.

when the installation succeeds, your Meta Portal will go black for a brief moment, then blink back on. from the Apps tab you should see TRMNL installed.

TRMNL display on Meta Portal

tap to open the app, then set it up as a regular TRMNL or BYOD device (free trial, then $50 lifetime license), pending your preferences.

you may also point your Meta Portal to a self-hosted server for a completely free experience. simply select BYOS from the TRMNL app home screen and follow along the instructions.

step 8 - enjoy

there's no reason 1 million Meta Portals need to visit a landfill. for $0-50 you can bring it back to life with TRMNL.

Art of the Day + Meta Portal

(full color also supported, just change your Presentation from the device settings tab)

troubleshooting

while installing the TRMNL Display Android app, if you get a failure message, it's possible you didn't yet enable the Debug tools. additionally, any time you restart a Portal the ADB debugger is disabled. repeat Step 4 to be sure.

to confirm your device is detected by your computer, run adb devices (or ./adb devices if using the zip folder contents) to confirm it appears:

Ryans-Mac-mini:Downloads ryanckulp$ adb devices
List of devices attached
819LCM01Z0944N04 device

to go back to your Meta Portal's home screen or use other apps, swipe "up" from the bottom, then tap the power off button. this will not actually turn off your Portal, it will just shut down the TRMNL Display app.

Turn off TRMNL Display

Creator Fund - June 2026

2026-07-06T00:00:00+00:00

for more context see the Creator Fund announcement.

our 9th payout recognizes community contributions between June 3, 2026 and July 5, 2026.

this month also introduces an improvement: "uninstall reason" feedback is now available inside your Analytics dashboard.

source of funds

each payout period, a portion of developer-specific revenue goes directly to creators.

source	revenue	share	amount
Stripe Developer Edition TRMNL+ Shopify Developer Edition Clarity Kit (X) Clarity Kit (OG) BYOD	$6,180 $555 $199.67 $12,822.56 $15,044.11 $11,692.49	15% 80% 15% 10% 10% 15%	$927 $444 $29.95 $1,282.26 $1,504.41 $1,753.87
	$46,493.83		$5,941.49

source

revenue

share

amount

Stripe

Developer Edition
TRMNL+

Shopify

Developer Edition
Clarity Kit (X)
Clarity Kit (OG)
BYOD

$6,180
$555

$199.67
$12,822.56
$15,044.11
$11,692.49

15%
80%

15%
10%
10%
15%

$927
$444

$29.95
$1,282.26
$1,504.41
$1,753.87

$46,493.83

$5,941.49

by the numbers

total payout: $5,941.49
plugin author share: $4,159.04 (70% of base total)
strategic contributors share: $1,782.45 (30% of base total)

plugin author earnouts are calculated automatically by a collection of factors including a plugin's age (on live playlists), presence (by % dominance on playlists), and impressions (times displayed on device), relative to all other community plugins. there is a minimum threshold of 50 total connections (installs + forks) to qualify for monthly payouts.

strategic contributors are those who contribute to TRMNL open source projects. these earnouts are calculated with a mix of automation + human touch. relative to the funding available, below are allocations by category:

Firmware, 9%
3D Models, 0%
BYOS, 70%
Localizations, 4%
BYOD, 12%
Documentation/Resources, 0%
Tooling, 5%

note: these allocations change monthly based on contributions by category.

algorithm?

see the algorithm in action here. over time the above weights, revenue share percentages, and minimum thresholds may change.

candid feedback is welcome, email team@trmnl.com.

Featured Community Plugin - Read it Later

2026-06-30T00:00:00+00:00

This post is part of a series, featuring the incredible work of plugin authors who grow the TRMNL plugin ecosystem with every contribution. The TRMNL team has individually selected these plugins and authors to be featured.

Read it Later

Community member Brian Seidman created the Read it Later plugin; here are their words on how it was created.

Why did you want this plugin to exist?

I’m continually collecting articles to read. Lately I’ve been trying to convince myself that it’s OK if the number of articles I’ve saved to read is more than the number of articles I ever *will* read, but the unread count in my read-it-later app still bothers me. (Used to be Pocket; I bounced around for a while but landed on Instapaper because it syncs with Kobo.) My TRMNL Read It Later plugin started as something just for me. I use Shortcuts on iOS heavily, and I had the “Get Random Article” Instapaper action for Shortcuts sending an article from my queue to display on my TRMNL with a QR code to open the article on the web. This was an attempt to nudge myself toward reading and clearing articles from my queue by surfacing them on my TRMNL.

Why were you the person to make it?

The Shortcuts basis for Read It Later was already there, and then when I began testing the TRMNL Companion iOS app and its own Shortcuts integration, I saw the opportunity to expand the plugin for a wider audience. Everyone can relate to finding an article online and wanting to save it for later, and having your TRMNL remind you of an article seemed a great use case.My Instapaper shortcut was using the Article object in Shortcuts, which is also presented by sharing any URL from iOS via the Share Sheet, so there were lots of possibilities — the shortcut could be used to send any web article to your TRMNL. It could also be easily integrated with any read-it-later-type service with a Shortcuts action or API to surface saved articles.

Were you inspired by any other recipes or plugin creators?

I was working on the plugin around the time that there were a lot of discussions online about the TRMNL v2 framework and designing for the TRMNL X. My Myers-Briggs Type plugin put the code to generate content into the plugin’s “shared" area, but a lot of the HTML was duplicated between the different layouts, just using different classes. Maybe that's the more straightforward way to go, but I was interested in using the shared layout for all of the HTML code and then the `render` function with variables in each of the layouts to specify CSS classes.User Excuseme's Trending Recipes plugin was an inspiration for that approach, and also Mario from TRMNL opened my eyes to the idea of showing/hiding information based on the layout size — so the full layout has the summary but the quadrant layout just has the title and QR code, for example. I try to make my plugins look good on every screen, all the layouts and orientations on the OG and the X.

How did you balance look vs functionality?

Shortcuts’ Article object will reliably extract the article’s title and URL, but when I was designing the plugin, that felt sparse on the screen, especially for the TRMNL X. I wanted to include an article summary, but unfortunately Shortcuts only offers the article body, and it doesn’t extract that reliably. I ended up using iOS’ built-in AI layer to generate a custom article summary before sending the information to the plugin. One interesting technical problem with Shortcuts and Apple Intelligence: There’s a “Use Model” prompt action, but sometimes this would fail and end the shortcut depending on how well Shortcuts could interpret the article body. There’s also a “Summarize” action to return AI summaries, but sometimes these were so short that the plugin still felt empty. The solution was to have “Summarize” do the first pass on the summary and then to send the summary to “Use Model” to expand or reduce as needed. Using both of those together, I haven’t had the problems that came from using one or the other alone.I set the shortcut so that by default it doesn’t repeat the article title or summary to the user. When I’m using the shortcut to send a random article to TRMNL, this adds a bit of whimsy — the article and summary can be a surprise (and the summary may not be totally accurate, sometimes with funny results). In my GitHub repository (https://github.com/brianseidman/trmnl-read-it-later) I offer directions for modifying these options, but it made a nice package by default — article title, article summary, the QR code, and a few other details.

What, if any, challenges did you face while creating it?

I may have made the Read It Later code too complicated, using a lot of Liquid logic to determine the TRMNL's size and orientation and then applying CSS classes accordingly. For the new plugin I’m working on now, I’m leaning more on CSS cascade, using CSS classes that differ depending on which `screen` class is present at the top. Some additional class prefixes would help me out immensely — not just portrait: and lg:, but vertical, portrait:vertical, lg:vertical, and etc.

Did you learn anything you want to apply to future recipes?

Working with the TRMNL framework on new plugins has challenged me to organize my CSS in different ways. I'm trying to build reusable components especially with the flex class that can be dropped in and modified just by changing the column or row orientation. I’m still iterating on what my default approach is to building TRMNL plugins.

Is there a tip you would give to a new plugin developer?

I think it’s useful to think of plugin components in terms of blocks or sections. Two sections that are side by side in a landscape layout can be stacked in a portrait layout. Also, again, think about entire sections with extra, nonessential details that can be shown on the TRMNL X but hidden on the TRMNL OG. Designing for the different layouts gets a lot simpler when it’s just a matter of showing and hiding elements.

Featured Community Plugin - Home Assistant Entity Cards

2026-06-16T00:00:00+00:00

This post is part of a series, featuring the incredible work of plugin authors who grow the TRMNL plugin ecosystem with every contribution. The TRMNL team has individually selected these plugins and authors to be featured.

Home Assistant Entity Cards

Community member Jef-NL (Discord: TheBoomNL) created the Home Assistant Entity Cards plugin; here are their words on how it was created.

Why did you want this plugin to exist?

Usually when I am working or watching something, one of my PC screens has my home assistant dashboard open. I made 1 custom view with statistics like: current ETF values, Temperature in different rooms, Time at work, Over hours for the week and so on. It is data that is really nice to see and to do something with if for instance my work hours are too much for the week, but it doesn't change soo much and it doesn't have to take up one of my PC screens. So I really wanted it to be something to just have on the wall.

Were you inspired by any other recipes or plugin creators?

Not really, I wanted to make it look and feel the same as the home assistant entity cards. And browsing through the TRMNL Framework page I came across a fun way to play with the grids.

How did you balance look vs functionality?

It needed to look clean. Main focus was the values it shows, so that was the thing put most visible, the icon and layout option are more there to make it look nice.

What, if any, challenges did you face while creating it?

I made the initial logic and display in the shared part of the markup editor, but this did not work for all screen layouts. I had to ask for some help and tips in discord, but after playing with it I figured out the order of loading the shared and the views, and with some help from the DOM on how to make sure the order was correct.

Did you learn anything you want to apply to future recipes?

I learned about the construction order of the shared code compared to the views. With this, running a function that is defined on a view is not possible without wrapping the shared code in:

document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", () => {}

This is something I will probably use more often to reduce duplicate code and allow for defining view specific functions.

Is there a tip you would give to a new plugin developer?

I am pretty new to this as well, don't even have a physical TRMNL yet. But my tip would be, even in this time of AI, read the documentation 😅 Liquid is something not just TRMNL specific and it's quite strong, would have used it more if I had read more about it before building this.

What is your favorite plugin that someone else created and why?

I came across the HVV Transit recipe. This is such a useful one to have. My first thought was to build something like this as this would be a must have for rainy mornings when I want to get to the office and want to know what busses and trains show up when.

What could have made building the recipe easier and faster?

Combine the framework, liquid and general help documentation in a single browsable webpage. I now had to have 3 different pages open to find what I was looking for. And I kept forgetting that it was called the framework, so I had to Google "TRMNL developer docs", that did not give a link to the docs directly but to the main page, from there to developer, docs and in there somewhere there was the link to the Framework help page 🤣. I wasn't so efficient in building this recipe but it was fun.

Model X Progress Report

2026-06-12T00:00:00+00:00

We introduced X on July 30, 2025. We began assembly + fulfillment on March 18, 2026.

To see your live spot in the order queue, go here:
https://trmnl.com/order-tracker (each warehouse ships ~50% of orders, so divide your # by 2)

Here's our per-warehouse queue as of July 7:

For detailed updates over time, see below.

When will I receive my TRMNL X?

Live in USA, Canada, India, Mexico, or Australia?

Your TRMNL will ship from our USA warehouse. Due to lost freight this warehouse has experienced intermittent inventory outages, see ”May” section for details, resolved in June.

Live in Europe, Asia, Africa, South America, etc?

Your TRMNL will ship from our Berlin warehouse. Due to Customs issues and supplier theft, this warehouse experienced intermittent inventory outages and did not receive magnets until May 21. As of June 5 the Berlin warehouse has been shipping all colors and combinations.

Estimating queue <> delivery timeline

Each warehouse is shipping ~50% of X orders, so if your spot in the queue is 4,000, it's actually spot 2,000 from your respective origin. As of early June we’re shipping 200+ devices per business day.

Example scenario: you're in the USA and your spot is 4000 => 2000. Your order will ship in around 10 business days.

Tech Specs

Highlights below, or see everything here.

10.3" 1872x1404 EPD resolution with 16 shades of gray
Dust and basic waterproofing with a hacker-friendly enclosure
ESP32-S3 with 16MB of flash and 8MB of PSRAM as a core processor with fallback 2.4GHz WiFi
5GHz WiFi support via ESP32-C5 as a modem (external antenna)
Support up to 2x 6000mAh 3.8V LiPo batteries with automatic detection
Battery gas gauge from TI for battery SOC/SOH/capacity tracking
Bosch accelerometer for portrait/landscape orientation
Gesture touch-bar based on Azotech IC
Magnetic pogo pin-based mount for charging and accessories (Coming 2026)
OTG support with 5V 2A output

Dimensions

These values may change as we scale production. last updated December 15, 2025.

X enclosure dimensions (mm)

Weight (device only, no attachments)

1 battery - 362 grams
2 batteries - 448 grams

August 2025

Multiple boards and controllers support touch gestures, battery charging, and 5ghz WiFi
The circular area interfaces with a waterproof "puck" shaped charging connector, and several test points on the motherboard's bottom will let us build a QA jig for our warehouse
Prior to release we'll prototypes to your favorite creators for first-look reviews

September 2025

PCB preview

We ordered 50x more prototypes with stronger magnets so devices can attach directly to a surface (e.g. refrigerator) without mounts
Dual band WiFi will be powered by the ESP32-C5 and we've benchmarked faster speeds + better range with custom modem firmware
Orders with the Battery Upgrade (or Clarity Kit) will now enjoy 10,000mAh versus the announced 7,000mAh variant
Our "charging puck" (name TBD) now has a universal connector for kickstands and other peripheral accessories that will debut in 2026
The same firmware that runs all OG + BYOD devices has been extended and is already running my own X prototype, preview here

October 2025

Grayscale testing with a GOAT

The first batch of screens arrived at our USA warehouse, more en route to our Berlin warehouse
Gesture bar + charging pucks are in small batch production
Received and approved packaging samples. Model X packaging will be more premium and protective than OG packaging.
Consolidating WiFi antennas (2.4 + 5gh) to a single component
Added 3 angle options (degrees) to the kickstand
[Work in progress] battery options may grow another 20% to 6000/12000mAh variants pending more testing

November 2025

Full assembly (3D printed parts, not final)

Fully functional prototype (3D printed case, non-branded silicone pads)

Prototype running latest (public) firmware release

Added extra reset buttons to S3 and C5 MCUs for hacker friendliness, board design is final
Batteries are in production and we can confirm the improved 6k / 12kmAh sizing (announced size: 5k / 7k)
Enclosure injection molds are in production, purchase order placed for thousands of cases in different colors
Magnet deliveries from Chinese factories have been delayed due to recent Critical Mineral Export Bans

December 2025

Battery production complete, shipping to our warehouses next week
EC licenses underway at testing facilities
Packaging in mass production
Magnets in mass production
[New] OTG functionality - power other devices from your TRMNL's charging puck

January 2026

From my desk to yours, a video update.

February 2026

From our warehouse to your desk, a video update.

March 2026

From my desk to yours, a video update.

If you prefer not to watch the video, in summary we're shipping single-battery devices only from our USA warehouse because our magnet supplier ripped us off and sent thousands of weak magnets, following multiple sample shipments with the correct (strong) magnets.

As of Wednesday, March 18:

Berlin warehouse has all 3 types of PCBs
Berlin warehouse should receive device enclosures in 1-2 weeks
USA warehouse has everything and has begun assembly + fulfillment

To check your place in the queue go here:
https://trmnl.com/order-tracker

If you already have a TRMNL, install the Order Tracker plugin to stay up to date:
https://trmnl.com/recipes/260817

How can I estimate the time it will take to receive mine?

Devices will be shipped in the order they were purchased and we intend to scale to 100s of fulfillments per day, as we have done for past releases and back-in-stock periods.

Our 2x warehouses have trained 15+ individuals to flash, assemble, and ship devices. We do not outsource to 3rd party logistics companies. You can learn more about our end to end philosophy and technology here and here.

April 2026

See a live demonstration of strong, N52 grade magnets on various refrigerator surfaces in this video update.

On April 26, N52 magnets arrived at our USA warehouse and assembly/fulfillment pace will increase dramatically beginning Monday, April 27.

On April 27, white + gray cases arrived at our Berlin warehouse and they are building half-assemblies (docks, kickstands) as they await N52 magnets.

May 2026

Between May 2-6th the USA warehouse was out of stock of charging docks for several colors due to a supplier mistake. To mitigate we assembled devices of all colors, but only fulfilled in-stock (charging dock) orders, some of which may sequentially be behind yours.

May 7 - black and sage charging docks arrived, allowing us to mostly ship in sequential order. This ensures the highest throughput overall, as punishing later orders with in-stock colors does not increase the speed of out-of-stock colors arriving.

May 19 - USA warehouse is still awaiting white + gray docks and cannot ship those colors, despite having the other parts. They were lost in transit and a new batch is on the way.

May 21 - Berlin, Germany warehouse received a batch of N52 magnets. They are now shipping black, sage, clear.

May 27 - Berlin, Germany warehouse received white u-mounts and is now able to ship white devices.

May 29 - USA warehouse received missing white charging docks and is finally shipping white devices.

May 31 - USA warehouse ran out of Clear enclosures and sage wall mounts. Black running very low. New shipment (full refresh) expected within a week.

June 2026

June 1 - USA warehouse received missing gray charging docks (sent/lost by UPS on April 7).

June 4 - Berlin, Germany warehouse received gray enclosures.

June 5 - Berlin, Germany warehouse received wood enclosures. Berlin is now able to ship all colors.

June 9 - USA warehouse only has inventory to ship white and gray X devices. More of every color arrive Thursday, June 11.

June 11 - USA warehouse received more inventory of every color and is fully in stock, shipping all X combinations.

June 21 - USA warehouse ran out of clear enclosures; affected customers have been emailed the option to change colors and not experience further delays.

June 24 - USA ran out of sage docks + kickstands, as FedEx lost this package (1 of 42 in our latest freight shipment) in May and is still looking for it. An extra set of components has been ordered (via air express) from our injection mold supplier.

Sage components lost by FedEx

June 29 - Berlin, Germany warehouse ran out of branded packaging. A rush order is en route. The team is still assembling devices to minimize delays.

July 3 - USA warehouse received missing Sage docks + kickstands, along with Clear cases. Clear kickstands + docks are still en rout, but the remaining 300+ on-hold Sage orders will be shipped by end of Monday, July 6.

July 7 - Berlin, Germany warehouse received X packaging. Foam should arrive within 24 hours and then shipping will resume.

Featuring Plugins for the Black-White-Red-Yellow (BWRY) TRMNL

2026-06-11T00:00:00+00:00

Our BWRY partial color e-ink dashboard (Black, White, Red, Yellow) is a newcomer in our lineup, and in our shop we already demonstrate how well it handles skin tones for photos of people and pets. This carries over to a variety of other plugins that pop with a splash of color because they are already image heavy.

Since the screen refresh is longer and requires more flashes per color, the best plugins for your BWRY display are ones that need less frequent refresh rates or are out of constant line-of-sight. Luckily, the built-in hook-hold makes it easy to place this unit on the wall with just a nail, or use the kickstand to decorate a shelf. So we've compiled a sample of plugins that use the strength of this device to deliver more information because of the use of color.

Imagery Plugins

Spotify Dashboard

The Spotify Dashboard brings to the forefront the art that musical artists integrate into their brand. If you are venturing out to listen to new music, the plugin gives you a better sense of what and who these artists are that have caught your lyrical attention.

RetroWall

Video games have been around for half a lifetime now, and new generations are exploring this rich history along with the nostalgia driven gamers. The RetroWall brings the game art to life, powered by a community of fellow retro gamers. Since most people don't experience these games through their box art anymore, this provides a timeline of art styles, all based on your own explorations.

Comic Library

We are constantly surprised at how popular simple levity is for plugins. TRMNL devices serve not only as an ambient display of actionable information, but an ePaper joy delivery system. At the end of a long day, smiling or laughing at a comic strip you love can make a big difference in how you feel the rest of the night. That's what the Comic Library provides, with 100's of comics available in multiple languages.

Weather & Calendar Plugins

We have a wide variety of weather plugins, but this particular weather plugin was custom build for the BWRY device by a community member. Using subtle color hints to identify sunlight and risk factors, like high rain or high UV. This makes looking at the weather an alert, without the notification sound and on your terms.

Of course, sometimes you just want to know what to wear today, and that's what this plugin provides. Color is used to quickly mark what is ignorable, without withholding the information.

This simple e-ink calendar dashboard trades density for clarity. With highlighting for holidays based on your selected country/state, every family member benefits from this glanceable display.

Stocks

Our final plugin builds on the TRMNL created Stocks plugin and redesigns it with the BWRY in-mind: Stock portfolio.

Using our data merge strategy and a feature of our recipe form fields to easily map one to the other, the red color meets you at your expectations, highlighting when the value has dropped, a common style choice when viewing financial markets.

And there ends our tour of some BWRY plugins! If you are checking out a recipe, don't forget to click PREVIEW and change the preview page to the B/W/R/Y TRMNL to see if color is integrated into it.

Creator Fund - May 2026

2026-06-03T00:00:00+00:00

for more context see the Creator Fund announcement.

our 8th payout recognizes community contributions between May 7, 2026 and June 2, 2026.

this month also introduces a couple improvements:

earnings are now visible inside your Analytics dashboard
we increased the BYOD revenue share from 10% → 15%

source of funds

each payout period, a portion of developer-specific revenue goes directly to creators.

source	revenue	share	amount
Stripe Developer Edition TRMNL+ Shopify Developer Edition Clarity Kit (X) Clarity Kit (OG) BYOD	$2,900 $421 $1,383.44 $10,933.42 $13,649.27 $13,257.63	15% 80% 15% 10% 10% 15%	$435 $336.80 $207.52 $1,093.34 $1,364.93 $1,988.64
	$42,544.76		$5,426.23

source

revenue

share

amount

Stripe

Developer Edition
TRMNL+

Shopify

Developer Edition
Clarity Kit (X)
Clarity Kit (OG)
BYOD

$2,900
$421

$1,383.44
$10,933.42
$13,649.27
$13,257.63

15%
80%

15%
10%
10%
15%

$435
$336.80

$207.52
$1,093.34
$1,364.93
$1,988.64

$42,544.76

$5,426.23

by the numbers

total payout: $5,426.23
plugin author share: $3,798.36 (70% of base total)
strategic contributors share: $1,627.87 (30% of base total)

Firmware, 0%
3D Models, 0%
BYOS, 84%
Localizations, 2%
BYOD, 0%
Documentation/Resources, 0%
Tooling, 14%

note that these allocations change monthly based on contributions by category.

algorithm?

over time the above weights, revenue share percentages, and minimum thresholds may change. reporting will become more transparent. our goal is an open sourced algorithm and self-service calculations with daily (or faster) resolution.

candid feedback is welcome, email team@trmnl.com.

Featured Community Plugin - MLB Season Standings

2026-06-02T00:00:00+00:00

This post is part of a series, featuring the incredible work of plugin authors who grow the TRMNL plugin ecosystem with every contribution. The TRMNL team has individually selected these plugins and authors to be featured.

MLB Season Standings

Community member Alain created the MLB Season Standings plugin; here are their words on how it was created.

Why did you want this plugin to exist?

When last year's baseball season was over, my plugin tracking one's favorite team's stats quickly became obsolete, and to avoid having a static data on screen for 6 months I replaced it with the end of season standings.At some point, I thought that this would deserve its own plugin, regularly updated, with more stats, so when the new season started, it was a perfect moment for me to get to work on that plugin, plus also work on TRMNL-X compatibility and specificities, and also deliver cleaner code that would leverage the transform and shared parts of the TRMNL framework.

Were you inspired by any other recipes or plugin creators?

Not really, I admit that the initial version of this plugin was really created in a rush, just to have something useful to show on screen once last year season was over. So it was more about, "what can the MLB API give me quickly that can be interesting to see for 6 months" and not really about a thoughtful ideation process.

How did you balance look vs functionality?

There's quite a lot of data to display if you want to see the full baseball league, so for me the look was the main and most important part of the plugin. I had to find a design that would make it legible at a glance, while being comprehensive enough so that you don't *need* another plugin to get clarifications.

What was your process for creating the plugin?

At one point I drafted very quickly a mockup in Figma, but rapidly realized that the amount of data / number of teams wouldn't let me be so creative.

What, if any, challenges did you face while creating it?

Not really a challenge, but the past plugins I had done were somewhat quick and dirty; for this one I wanted to go all the way and understand the TRMNL X compatibility challenges, and experiment with as many features from the development framework as possible.

Did you learn anything you want to apply to future recipes?

That will sound very newb but the relationships between the layouts, shared and transform parts of code is much clearer for me now.

What's your next plugin going to be?

I'd like to work on something to show incoming movie / videogames / tvshows releases :)

What is your favorite plugin that someone else created and why?

Probably the xkcd comic one, it's always a blast to read Randall Munroe's crazy creations.

State of BYOD

2026-05-26T00:00:00+00:00

thousands of people have built their own TRMNL device. last week we shared a survey to better understand the BYOD ecosystem, below are those results and what we're doing about it.

ease of setup

of 230 responses, 135 purchased a BYOD license. this is not necessary if you want to go fully open source (BYOS), but i'm glad we can bifurcate results by this answer. you'll see why in a bit.

1 - difficult; 5 - easy

the majority (54.9%) of license holders said it was easy to set up their device, but i want this metric to be at least 70%.

insight: create smarter (device model specific) guides. -> onboarding wizard is now live.

does size matter?

here it appears we're already in the sweet spot.

Interest by display size

although 43.1% of responses are seeking devices larger than 11", that number drops to 35% when considering only BYOD license holders. i think can be explained by how prohibitively expensive displays become past the ~13 inch threshold.

a license holder is aware of ePaper price jumps, a non license holder may not be and is living in fantasy land. which is OK, we live there too. let's be neighbors?

larger displays are also a lot more complex to set up. as your screen interface jumps from SPI to parallel, driver boards change, so does power consumption, and of course so does the enclosure needed to fit it all. designing a 3D printable case for a large display would be a 20+ hour print and require multiple joints to connect disparate pieces.

insight: focus on 7.5 - 13.3" displays. if you need something much bigger, stay tuned for an announcement later this Summer.

ecosystem compatibility

this was a curious set of answers, inconclusive from a prioritization standpoint and an obvious indication that we (i) do a poor job communicating the myriad devices already supported.

Demand by device

insight: ask this question again after increasing ecosystem visibility.

quickstart wishlist

for the impulsive shopper i wanted to understand which singular optimization might have swayed their purchase decision. we're not in the business of selling things people don't need, but we are in the business of creating aha moments.

What would help you get started?

here we'll look at only non BYOD license holder responses. a whopping 58.8% said a Free Trial would have helped them make a decision, whereas only 41.9% of license holders would have preferred a free trial.

nearly double the number of license holders (31.8%) prefer better documentation to non license holders (17.6%). this makes sense given you don't know the strength of a guide until you actually try to follow it.

insight: implement a free trial or interactive demo. → free trials are now live.

open-ended requests

this is the most valuable part of the survey because it's a bummer to read. below are a few random examples, copy/pasted verbatim, along with our reaction.

Request	TRMNL note
Amazon Kindle (jailbroken)	already supported [1, 2]
android tablets	already supported [1, 2]
Inkplate	already supported [1]
Tidbyt	already supported [1, 2]
Apparently the Raspberry Pi repo does not support E-Ink displays last time I checked. If this is still the case, I’d love to see support for that case (please). I’d like to get a Pi and a big e-ink screen and put them together	already supported [1, 2]
Full color epaper displays	already supported [1]

clearly we have an education problem. a deep rabbit hole does no good if it's hard to find.

insight: make it easy (+ fun) to figure out which household devices can run TRMNL. -> onboarding wizard is now live.

what's next

Larry Bank leads our BYOD effort. for an introduction to some of his impact at TRMNL see here and here and here.

Larry can reverse engineer and improve just about any device <> display combo, making it TRMNL friendly and power efficient.

for the past several months we've expanded BYOD largely on a set of hunches about what people want. today we're beginning to mix those gut decisions with community feedback.

to the thousands of customers who purchased BYOD licenses, thank you. a portion of your funds go directly to TRMNL Creators and your live chats, public reviews, and emails will continue guiding us.

to prospective DIY-ers: stay tuned for better docs, risk-free demos (now live), and less digging around our website to figure out if the device in your hand is TRMNL compatible.

for the raw data used in this post go here.

Featured Community Plugin - Brick Storage

2026-05-19T00:00:00+00:00

This post is part of a series, featuring the incredible work of plugin authors who grow the TRMNL plugin ecosystem with every contribution. The TRMNL team has individually selected these plugins and authors to be featured.

Brick Storage

Community member Daniel Boberg created the Brick Storage plugin; here are their words on how it was created.

Why did you want this plugin to exist?

I built Brick Storage to track my LEGO collection. Market values, ROI, what's gaining value. But I kept opening the app just to glance at my portfolio total. When I got my TRMNL, it clicked immediately: this number belongs on my desk, updating quietly, not behind a browser tab. A passive, always-there glance at your collection's worth. No login, no app, no notification. Just the data, on e-ink, beautiful.

Why were you the person to make it?

I'm a LEGO collector who couldn't find a tool that treated collections like real portfolios so I built Brick Storage myself. It started as a side project for tracking my own sets, and grew into a platform with 25,000+ sets, live market data from multiple sources, and a small but passionate community. When my TRMNL arrived, the first thing I wanted to see on it was my collection's value. I'm not just the developer, I'm the first user. Every feature exists because I wanted it on my own desk first.

How did you balance look vs functionality?

Data first. On e-ink you don't have color or animation, so the information hierarchy has to carry everything. I spent most of my time figuring out what to show vs. what to cut. The portfolio view packs a lot into one screen (value, ROI, sparkline, top performers), but it only works because TRMNL's CSS framework handles the typography well. For the random discovery view I let the set image do the heavy lifting and kept the text minimal.

What was your process for creating the plugin?

I already had the full data pipeline running on Supabase. So the plugin was mostly about building a new rendering layer on top of existing data. I wrote the markup endpoint that generates HTML for all four TRMNL sizes. No Liquid, no external template engine. Just raw HTML strings with TRMNL's CSS classes.

Did you learn anything you want to apply to future recipes?

Start with all four layout sizes from day one. I built the full view first and then had to rethink everything for half and quadrant. If I'd designed quadrant first, the full view would have come together much faster. Small screen first, then scale up.

Is there a tip you would give to a new plugin developer?

Use the TRMNL CSS Framework classes instead of writing custom styles. I wasted time with inline CSS before realizing the built-in classes handle e-ink rendering way better. Also, test with actual data early. The preview on trmnl.com looks different from the real device, especially with images and contrast.

What is your favorite plugin that someone else created and why?

The YouTube Stats plugin. Simple idea, clean execution. Subscriber count and recent video stats on your desk without opening YouTube Studio. It's the same principle I follow: Data you check too often deserves a passive e-ink display.

Do you have a LEGO addiction?

My TRMNL shows my LEGO portfolio at all times. I caught myself rearranging my desk so it's the first thing I see in the morning.