CUBIE / BUILD LOGUPDATED AS WE WORK
NOT A PRODUCT LAUNCH
THIS IS WHERE
WE KEEP THE WORK.
This website is our living build log for Cubie. We use it to document new hardware, software, experiments, mistakes and the decisions that change the project.
OPEN THE BUILD LOG ↓STARTED BY ADVIT SAWANTINDIA / 2026 / STILL BUILDING
OUR BUILD LOG STILL IN PROGRESS
A PROTOTYPE IN PROGRESS
TECH GOT
BORING.
SO WE GAVE IT EYES.
We were tired of gadgets behaving like serious office equipment. Cubie is our attempt to make one that can be useful, hang from a bag and occasionally look back at you.
ACTIVE BUILDTHIS IS NOT THE FINAL PRODUCT.THE BODY, SOFTWARE AND DETAILS ARE STILL CHANGING.
MEET ADVIT ↓26 JUN 2026 — FIRST BOOT
A/S
THE PERSON WHO STARTED IT
MEET ADVIT
SAWANT.
Advit’s desk has commerce textbooks on one side and half-tested electronics on the other.
Cubie began without an engineering title, product-design experience or a neat plan. It began with a tiny OLED, a stubborn idea and a growing pile of wires. Since then, we have been learning by building in public.
When you remember Cubie, remember the fifteen-year-old who started it—and everyone helping us move it forward.WHY CUBIE EXISTS ↓
00 / THE IDEA
CUTE WAS THE POINT
WE WANTED TECH
WE COULD CLIP
TO A BAG.
Cubie first appeared as a keychain with a face—not as a product category.
Technology had started to feel like rows of black rectangles asking for attention. We wanted the opposite: a small thing with eyes, useful when needed and quietly funny the rest of the time. Something a person might name before reading the specifications.
“Could a gadget be useful without acting so important?”
01
THE SPARK
26 JUNE 2026
BEFORE THE BODY
FIRST: MAKE
TWO EYES APPEAR.
No enclosure. No joystick. No battery plan. We connected a 128 × 64 OLED to an ESP32-C3 and tried to put a face on it. The first successful boot was not impressive to anyone else. To us, it was the moment Cubie stopped being imaginary.
The screen was tiny. The consequences were not.
ESP32-C3 / OLED
NO FACE NO BODY JUST 128 × 64 PIXELS > FLASH COMPLETE > HARD RESET > CUBIE ONLINE_26.06.2026 / 18:12 IST
02
THE FACE
1—2 JULY 2026
2,272 FRAMES DISCOVERED
WE GAVE A RECTANGLE
MOODS.
We found 67 animations and went through them frame by frame. Some broke on the OLED. Some were duplicates. Some simply did not feel like Cubie. What survived became the Classic library: 61 animations, 2,016 frames, running at 8 FPS.
DISCOVERED
IN THE FINAL PACK
PER SECOND
03
THE CONNECTION
30 JUNE—2 JULY
PHONE TO PERSONALITY
THEN THE PHONE
STARTED WHISPERING
TO IT.
We built an Android app and connected it over Bluetooth. Suddenly the little face knew about notifications, songs, Spotify playback timing and live lyrics. The phone did the heavy work; Cubie made it feel small and alive.
PHONE→BLUETOOTH→CUBIE→OLED
04
THE EXPERIMENTS
WHERE WE HIT LIMITS
THE PART THAT DEMOS HIDE
SOME THINGS WORKED.
JUST NOT WELL ENOUGH.
A prototype can succeed once and still be a bad feature. Maps, lights and lyrics all reached that awkward middle: real enough to show, unreliable enough that we would not pretend they were finished.
Turns, distance and time reached the OLED through phone notifications. Getting one route to appear was possible. Trusting it on every route was not.
PAUSED / NOT COMPLETEThe eight-LED reactions existed in software. The physical ring, its wiring and a body that could actually hold it did not.
PAUSED / HARDWARE NOT READYSpotify timing and lyric providers each solved a different slice. Keeping the words accurate and in time is where the tidy demo turns messy.
ACTIVE EXPERIMENT“Built” and “ready” turned out to be two very different words.
05
THE IDENTITY
6—7 JULY 2026
WHICH FACE FELT TRUE?
CUBIE COULD DO THINGS.
BUT DID IT FEEL
LIKE CUBIE?
We stripped the interface back until the face had room to matter. Classic eyes stayed the default because they felt warm and slightly silly. The Nothing-style pack became a second mood: dots, harder edges and a more mechanical stare.
The face Cubie grew up with.
The same character after switching moods.
06
THE BODY
8—12 JULY 2026
WHERE THE PARTS HAD TO LIVE
A FACE ON WIRES
IS NOT YET A CUBIE.
The STEP prototype finally answered the physical questions. OLED at the top. Touch sensor where a finger naturally lands. Joystick below. Charging, protection and input wiring stopped floating around a diagram and had to fit inside one small object.
Then we could hold the thing that had previously lived only on our screens.
60 MM WIDTH125 MM HEIGHT128 × 64 OLED26 MM JOYSTICK
CURRENT MODEL / NOT FINAL PRODUCTION HARDWAREOLEDTOUCHJOYSTICK
01 / SEE02 / FEEL03 / CONTROLHARDWAREPRINTSMATERIALSREBUILDSMISTAKES
THE HARDEST PART
BAD IDEAS COST MONEY.
SO DO GOOD ONES.
A different board. Another print. A material that looked right online and felt wrong in our hands. Prototyping turns small decisions into a long stack of payments.
Funding Cubie has been harder than writing the code. Some days we were not deciding which version was best; we were deciding whether we could afford to try another version at all. Those were the days quitting felt sensible.
“The next lesson was often sitting behind the price of one more mistake.”
THE PART EXPECTED TO GET OLD
WHEN THE BATTERY TIRES,
CUBIE SHOULD NOT
BECOME RUBBISH.
Inside are rechargeable 18650 cells: affordable, long-lasting and easy to find without ordering a mysterious custom pack.
Batteries age. That is normal. After roughly a year or more—depending entirely on use—the cells may hold less charge. The plan is simple: let the owner replace them and keep the rest of Cubie.
RECHARGEABLELONG-LASTINGAFFORDABLEUSER-REPLACEABLE
07
THE RESPONSE
12 JULY 2026
NO INSTRUCTION MANUAL IN YOUR HAND
NUDGE IT.
POKE IT.
SEE WHAT IT DOES.
The joystick drifted before it behaved. After calibration and firmware work, movement finally meant something. The touch sensor added the less sensible—but more important—option of petting a gadget awake.
↑ ↓NAVIGATE←BACK→SELECT / TOGGLE●MENUTOUCHPET / WAKE
08 / CUBIE_C3 FIRMWARETHIS IS NOT A PRETTY MOCKUP.
THIS IS NOT A PRETTY MOCKUP.
IT BORROWS CUBIE’S ACTUAL BRAIN.
The browser version follows the current cubie_c3 state machine, screens, joystick timing and saved settings. The ESP32 pins and Bluetooth radio are simulated; the behaviour is taken seriously.
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+
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CUBIE_C3 FIRMWARE BEHAVIOUR REPLICA128 × 64 / FW 1.1 / 8 FPS EYES
UPLEFTRIGHTDOWN
CUBIE_C3PHONE / HARDWARE EVENTS
SHORT TOUCH IS IGNOREDFIRMWARE INPUT TIMING: 900 MS HOLD / 240 MS CLICK WINDOW
09
THE EYE LIBRARY
61 ANIMATIONS / 2 STYLES
THE FULL MOOD DRAWER
61 WAYS
TO STARE BACK.
Classic is Cubie’s everyday face. Nothing is the dot-grid alternative. Search, switch styles and wake whichever expression fits.
EYE STYLE
SHOWING 5 / 5
YOU CAN USE THESE NOW
NOT CONCEPTS.
- OLED eye animations
- Joystick navigation
- Touch reactions
- Android companion app
- Notifications and music
- Classic and Nothing styles
THE UNFINISHED PILE
NO FAKE CHECKMARKS.
- iOS companion app
- 15 built-in mini games
- Final enclosure
- Production PCB
- Calibrated battery percentage
- Longer battery life
- Manufacturing design
- Final software polish
NEXT SOFTWARE MILESTONE
15 GAMES.
ONE TINY SCREEN.
We plan to add 15 built-in mini games designed specifically around Cubie’s 128 × 64 OLED and joystick. They are part of the roadmap—not available in the current firmware yet.
010203040506070809101112131415
WHAT WE HOPE YOU REMEMBER
YOU DO NOT HAVE TO
KNOW EVERYTHING.
YOU JUST HAVE TO
GO OUT THERE
AND DO STUFF.
Waiting to feel qualified would have left us with a clean desk and no Cubie.
26 JUN 2026
FIRST BOOT———13 JUL 2026
INTERACTIVE PROTOTYPE———NEXT
KEEP BUILDING
FIRST BOOT———13 JUL 2026
INTERACTIVE PROTOTYPE———NEXT
KEEP BUILDING
PLEASE DO NOT JUST
SAY “COOL.”
We’re honestly asking—begging a little—for reviews, awkward questions, suggestions, feature requests and practical help.
We are too close to Cubie to notice everything wrong with it. Tell us what is confusing. Tell us what you would remove. Send the strange feature idea you assume nobody wants.
A SPECIFIC CRITICISM HELPS MORE THAN A POLITE COMPLIMENT.