Introduction

An introduction to running TRMNL on your own hardware.

There are 4 flavors to building the perfect setup for your needs:

1. Default - buy our device, that runs our firmware, and pings our server

2. BYOD - build your own device, that runs our firmware, and pings our server

3. BYOD/S - build your own device, mod our firmware, and ping your own server

4. BYOS - buy our device, mod our firmware, and ping your own server

Choosing your stack

After starting TRMNL and going down the rabbit holes of smart home DIY, open source IoT, e-ink, and gadget communities, it became clear that end-to-end ownership, security, and data privacy are especially important building trust in the ecosystem.

With this realization we decided to open source our firmware and provide free guides to reproduce the TRMNL experience without our servers in the middle.

In our opinion...

• If you're not comfortable with coding, Option #1 is our best suggestion.

• If you're comfortable in high-level programming languages, Option #4 provides an 80/20 approach to increasing privacy without breaking the bank.

• If you have experience in C/C++, or have experience with micro controllers and Python, Option #2 will give you the pride of having full control over the look and feel of your peripheral device

• If you are a l33t programmer or simply have access to AI (half joking), Option #4 is our most comprehensive offering to customize TRMNL however you'd like, with zero PII in our servers.

Prerequisites

Options 1, 3, and 4 are available to all customers for no extra charge.

Option 2 requires a small monthly fee to cover your compute time on our servers, since we won't make any revenue on a device sale.

Next steps

Once you've determined the best setup for your needs, find the relevant guide on the left underneath "DIY TRMNL."