TRMNL – A calm little dashboard for a noisy desk

REVIEW – My desk has slowly turned into a wall of tabs and phone notifications, and I got tired of unlocking something and falling down a rabbit hole every time I just wanted to glance at the weather or my next meeting. What I wanted was a calm little screen that shows me the handful of things I care about and then leaves me alone, which is also generally what I want out of the humans in my life, though they seem to manage the leaving-alone part just fine on their own. The TRMNL caught my eye because it’s exactly that, a small ePaper dashboard that sits on your desk and quietly displays whatever you point it at. At $139.00 for the black model I tested, it’s a bit of an indulgence, so I wanted to see whether a single-purpose ambient display earns its keep. Note: I bought this TRMNL with my own money. It was not provided by the manufacturer or any affiliated company or brand.

Photos and video by Gregory Morley.

The Basics

The TRMNL is a 7.5-inch ePaper display that shows customizable plugins, small panels for things like your calendar, the weather, stock tickers, RSS feeds, to-do lists, and hundreds of other data sources. It runs off a battery, connects to your network in a deliberately locked-down way, and leans hard into being open-source and hackable. There are over a thousand plugins already, and you can build your own in a few minutes or self-host the whole thing if you want total control. It’s a screen built for people who mostly want to be left alone, a market I didn’t know I was so squarely in until I bought one.

What You Get

• TRMNL (OG) ePaper display, Black
• Charging cable
• Matte screen protector
• Microfiber cleaning cloth
• Quick start instructions

By the Numbers

• Price: $139.00
• Screen: 7.5-inch ePaper, 4 grayscale levels, fast refresh
• Power: Rechargeable battery
• Connectivity: Wi-Fi, one-way client-to-server for privacy
• Plugins: 1,000+ available, custom plugins supported
• Philosophy: Open-source, “Unbrickable Pledge,” self-hostable
• Colors offered: Black, Clear, White, Sage, Gray, faux Light and Dark Wood

Design & Build

The black enclosure is understated in a way I appreciate. It looks like a small picture frame more than a gadget, so it blends into a desk instead of shouting for attention, and I feel a certain kinship with objects that have mastered the art of being present without needing to be looked at. The ePaper screen is the right call here. It’s easy on the eyes, has no glow, and holds its image without drawing power, so it feels less like a screen and more like a printed card that happens to update itself. Build quality is simple and solid, nothing fancy, nothing flimsy.

Setup & Plugins

Getting started was refreshingly painless. You connect it to your network, pick the plugins you want from the library, and arrange what shows up. With over a thousand options I had no trouble filling it with the things I actually check: calendar up top, weather, and a rotating feed of news and reminders. The plugin system is the real draw, and the fact you can build your own in under five minutes means this thing grows with you instead of boxing you in. My calendar plugin is admittedly a very quiet panel most weeks, but at least when a rare event does appear, I know exactly what I’m not going to.

Privacy & the Open-Source Angle

One detail I didn’t expect to care about but ended up liking: the TRMNL uses one-way communication between the device and the server, so outsiders, including the company itself, can’t reach into your local network through it. Pair that with the open-source approach and the promise they won’t brick your device down the line, and it feels like a gadget built by people who actually respect the person buying it. That’s rarer than it should be, and honestly more consideration than I’ve gotten from some entire relationships.

Everyday Use

After a few weeks the TRMNL has done exactly what I hoped: it gives me a calm glance at my day without pulling me into a screen. I look over, see my next meeting and whether I need a jacket, and get back to work. There’s no notification badge tempting me to unlock it and lose ten minutes, which is fine because there also wouldn’t have been any actual notifications waiting for me anyway. For a certain kind of person, and I’m clearly that person, that quiet is worth a lot. My own rotation has settled into a handful of plugins I genuinely check: Seattle Weather so I know whether to grab a jacket for a walk I’m taking alone, a Stock Price panel, a Days Left This Year counter that’s weirdly motivating, This Day in History for a little daily curiosity, a Biorhythms widget for fun, and a Days Left Until countdown for the dates I care about, most of which are just my own upcoming appointments. Five plugins connected and it never feels cluttered. The dashboard tells me it’s quietly displayed over 21,000 pieces of content and reckons it’s saved me around 28 days of screen time, and honestly that tracks with how much less I reach for my phone now, which was mostly serving as a small rectangle full of nothing anyway.

What Could Be Better

Honestly, not much, and I don’t say that often. If I’m reaching, the ePaper refresh is deliberate rather than instant, so this isn’t a screen for anything live or fast-moving, and you do have to think in terms of glanceable panels rather than dense detail. But those are the nature of ePaper, not flaws, and none of it has bothered me in daily use. This is as close to a do-one-thing-perfectly device as I’ve reviewed.

Quick Questions

Q: Does the TRMNL need to stay plugged in?
A: No, it runs off a rechargeable battery, so it can sit on a desk without a permanent cable.

Q: Can you build your own plugins for the TRMNL?
A: Yes, custom plugins are supported and can be built in under five minutes on top of the 1,000+ already available.

Q: Does TRMNL’s company have access to your local network?
A: No. It uses one-way client-to-server communication specifically so outsiders, including TRMNL itself, cannot reach into your local network through the device.

Q: Is the ePaper screen good for anything live or fast-updating?
A: Not really. The refresh is deliberate rather than instant, so it’s built for glanceable panels like weather or a calendar, not live or fast-moving data.

Final Thoughts

The TRMNL set out to be a calm, customizable ambient display, and it nails that brief. The ePaper screen is easy to live with, the thousand-plus plugins mean it can show almost anything, and the open-source, privacy-first foundation makes it feel like a purchase you can trust for the long haul. At $139.00 it’s not for everyone, but if your desk has become a distraction machine and you want one honest little screen that just tells you what you need without also demanding your attention, this is a genuinely lovely thing to own. It’s the roommate I always wanted: informative, quiet, and content to sit there. Price: $139.00
Where to buy: TRMNL
What I like: Calm ePaper display, huge plugin library, open-source and privacy-first
What I don’t: ePaper refresh is deliberate, not built for anything live or fast-moving

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