That's been my experience too. That has lead to a small community and little real excitement around them.

These are an ESP32-S3 so you can use standard tools instead of whatever their offering is. Like EEZ Studio for GUI creation on LVGL.

Most of their products are ESP32 based I think.

All of my devices from them are running micropython and my own code. Because they're all ESP32s and how everything works is documented.

The software to achieve my goals basically "just works".

as long as they include a schematic for their products, i'm set

i've always viewed m5stack / seeed / tindie as 'dev board marketplaces'; once i proof the rest of the design using their board, i take the known-working schematic and simply cut out the parts i dont want to spin rev 2, then once that is working i optimize the remaining parts for rev3, and project done :)

You can just use freeink.org to develop for it fwiw

I have a tiny devboard collection habit, and gotta say coding agents work great with these. I've got a stick and a few dials running various hyper specific UIs for home assistant.

I use plain arduino-cli to develop for them. UIFlow looks like an awful experience.

M5Stack and LilyGo products aren't necessarily end user ready. They are awkward middle grounds between shoebox sized literal circuit level prototype of smartphones and on-stage-CEO-showing-off prototypes. A bit like bake at home dough. Not competitors to real products.

I really don't understand why the XTEINK X4 Pro doesn't have a built-in USB-C port. A good part of the appeal of a device like that is less lock-in, but then you're stuck with a proprietary connector.

I guess this makes it a bit thinner and maybe a larger battery? I'd much rather have a slightly larger/thicker device and built-in USB-C.

and has a touchscreen

I think you can get 60 fps out of the old Paper S3. There was a gameboy emulator I saw recently that did it with some trickery I haven't reproduced on mine, but super impressive piece of hardware.

nice flex

M5Stack's twitter says 2 to 3 months [0] to restock because they're out of eink driver ic.

When I submitted the story maybe 8 hours[1] after the announcement, it was already out of stock. This person says it sold out in 1 second - https://x.com/henry19840301/status/2090652363434647738 - if that's possible.

[0]:https://x.com/M5Stack/status/2091116748686922069

[1]:https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49390702

i can't remember where i read it, but a few days ago i saw they didn't expect a restock until next year

When I order from m5, box is postmarked from California