A whole library in one small box.
Library is a base station with a microSD card, a speaker and its own WiFi network. Load it with films, music, audiobooks and books. Every Atlas in the room can connect and stream: the picture goes to each little screen, the sound plays here. Atlas has no speaker and almost no storage, and now it does not need either.
Holds a ton
Atlas keeps about 900 KB free for itself. One 22-minute episode is nearly 5 MB. Library carries the collection on a microSD card, so the shelf is as big as the card you put in it. The card arrives with the Reader files and the Academy material already on it. The rest is yours to fill.
Films in one bit
Pictures stream as .reel files: 1-bit video dithered for the little OLED, about 30 kbps per viewer. Atlas tints its three LEDs to match the scene, a bias light behind the screen.
One speaker, on purpose
There is exactly one speaker in the room and Library owns it. Whoever presses play first starts the show. Everyone else joins in sync, or reads something silently beside it.
Books and audiobooks
Drop an EPUB on the card and Library hands Atlas plain text, a page at a time, with bookmarks on the dial. Audiobooks and music play from the same shelf.
Movie night, synced
Library announces what is playing a few times a second. Every Atlas nudges its own frames to stay within a blink of the room, and late joiners land right where the show is.
Nothing to set up
Power it anywhere. Library makes its own WiFi network, Atlas finds it from Reader mode, and the shelf appears. No router, no internet, no accounts.
How a screening works
- Someone presses play. That Atlas starts the show and the sound comes up on Library's speaker. A show with one viewer is still a show.
- Others wander in. The shelf on their Atlas marks the live screening. One click joins it, in sync, with the room's sound.
- Or they do their own thing. Video and text are per-viewer, so one person reads a novel while two watch the film and a fourth scrubs through something else with the sound off.
- The dial does the obvious thing. Playing: volume. Paused: jog through the film shot by shot, and a fast spin skips minutes. Reading: turn the page, click to bookmark.
Flash it from your browser
Plug the Library's ESP32-S3-Zero into USB and write the firmware right here over Web Serial. Chrome, Edge or Opera on a desktop. Your films, music and books live on the microSD card, and flashing never touches the card.
Build one
Three boards and a speaker, wired point to point. The whole thing runs from a USB cable or a battery pack. Format any microSD card as FAT32, copy the Reader and Academy starter files onto it, and add whatever you like beside them: the shelf is whatever you make it.
| Part | What it does |
|---|---|
| Waveshare ESP32-S3-Zero | the brain: WiFi network, HTTP server, audio decode |
| microSD breakout (SPI) | the shelf: FAT32 card holding reels, MP3s and books |
| MAX98357A I2S amplifier | the voice: 3 W of mono into any small speaker |
| a speaker | movie night |
| microSD | pin | amp | pin |
|---|---|---|---|
| SCK | GPIO12 | BCLK | GPIO4 |
| MISO | GPIO13 | LRC | GPIO5 |
| MOSI | GPIO11 | DIN | GPIO6 |
| CS | GPIO10 | GAIN | floating |
| VCC / GND | 3V3 / GND | VIN / GND | 3V3 / GND |
Bring it up one fault at a time: power on USB
and watch the serial log report the card, type tone to prove the amp
and speaker, play song.mp3 to prove the card feeds the decoder, then
join its WiFi and open http://192.168.4.1. Everything is provable
before an Atlas ever connects. The full wiring notes live at the top of
the source, and the protocol is in
the Library spec.
Part of the Academy
Print and Play Academy is how the ecosystem teaches. Mouse teaches you to think in rules before you ever see a line of code. Maker teaches you to build and ship something of your own. Library teaches you what a film actually is, one bit at a time, and hides a reel on every unit for someone to find. Earn a code on a card, type it into an Atlas, and the badge is yours.