A small drawn figure in a pointed hat and round glasses, with a seal reading wander

wander

I make small things, mostly for a little E Ink phone, and tinker with a few home servers that several of them talk to. They keep to themselves — no accounts, nothing sent to me, nothing that needs looking after. Most of the work is deciding what to leave out. I am so glad you stopped by to check out my offerings. Something broken? Open an issue, or write to email@wanderthe.dev. Happy trails!

Supper by the fire at nightfall, the dark wood all round: wander with the pan on, a cup of tea, the pipe, Kumo the llama lying by

Wander — Coming soon

A walk in the redwoods with Kumo the llama. It takes after Fumito Ueda's ICO, Might and Delight's Book of Travels, Superbrothers' Sword & Sworcery, and the way Jason Rohrer lets a game's rules carry its meaning.

One walk is one day, about twelve minutes by the real clock, from the morning mist to dusk. There is nothing to win and no words on the screen. Gather mushrooms until the basket is full, then leave the rest. Hold on an old fire ring for a fire, and on the fire for tea. Stand still and Kumo grazes, hums, and finds the chanterelles you walked past; its ear turns toward what you would have missed. Wait, and a slug crosses the path, a deer stops to listen, the far wood opens up. The seasons follow the calendar, and the weather comes from Sky when it is on the phone. At dusk the lantern comes on and you make camp. Open the game that night and the tent is there, Kumo asleep beside it, and the notebook has drawn everything you met.

For the Mudita Kompakt

The Kompakt is an Android phone with a black-and-white E Ink screen. Everything here is drawn for it: nothing animates, and every page reads in sunlight. A few settings the phone keeps out of reach, such as the hidden browser and the default apps, can be changed from a computer over USB on Kompakt tweaks.

Each app has a download link, and Obtainium can keep them updated from their GitHub pages. I put out fixes as soon as they are ready, so updates come often. If Obtainium says "rate limit exceeded", give it a free GitHub personal access token in its settings (no permissions needed). To update by hand, download the newer APK and open it: it installs over the old one and keeps your data.

Everyday

The Messaging inbox: conversations newest first, under All, Groups and Unknown tabs

Messaging

SMS, MMS and Signal in one inbox, and a page your phone serves to your own computer so you can text from a keyboard. Signal voice calls too. With Glance, what is unread on the lock screen; with Whereabouts, Send where I am.

Handset's Recents tab: calls with Ada Whitlock, Tomas Reyes, Nina Park and others, each with a direction arrow and time, and missed calls in bold

Handset

Favorites, Recents, Contacts and a keypad. Nothing in a list dials on a touch, a call is answered by holding the button down, and numbers you don't know can ring, stay silent or be turned away. The other half of Messaging.

Cabinet with two files chosen in the Shared folder on a home server, with Copy, Move, Delete and More along the foot

Cabinet

A file manager, with the shared drives on your own servers as places like any other, and other apps open and save through it. A copy is written whole or not at all. PDFs open and print here; a track (.gpx) opens in Topo.

Torrents with four free films: Night of the Living Dead downloading, Big Buck Bunny paused, The General and Sintel seeding

Torrents

Magnet links and torrent files, choosing which files to fetch, RSS feeds, a scheduler and a proxy with a kill switch. LibreTorrent underneath, in black and white, with nothing that slides. Others in a torrent see your internet address; nothing else goes anywhere.

Pictures showing the Walks folder: a three-across grid of grayscale landscapes (mountain ridges, a path, pine forest, plowed fields)

Pictures

The pictures on the phone, by folder, a page at a time. Crop, turn or write on one, and save it where you choose. With your own Immich or Nextcloud server, its pictures too, and the camera backed up there.

Lens viewfinder showing the emulator's scene of a small house, with Shadows turned on (bold), the last picture's thumbnail, the shutter and the flash button

Lens

Photos and video laid out as Mudita's own camera is, with HDR, Night and QR codes read as you point. A code can go to Wallet as a card, a sign-in code to Passwords. Open Camera underneath; nothing drawn over the viewfinder.

Datebook month view for November 2026: a full month of made-up events (choir practice every Tuesday, lunch with Ada, dentist, farmers market, Thanksgiving), with today's date highlighted

Datebook

Month, week, day and agenda, with repeats of every ordinary shape and reminders that light the screen. It syncs with your own Nextcloud or other CalDAV server, or follows a calendar by its link. With Glance, today's events on the lock screen.

The Mailbox inbox: messages newest first, each with its sender and first lines

Mailbox

Any mail account that takes a password, read and written in black and white, a page at a time. Thunderbird for Android, redrawn for this screen. Pictures in a message load only when you ask. With Glance, what is unread on the lock screen.

Connections: the All list of people

Connections

Everyone you know, under tabs for all, favorites and groups. A person's page lists each number to call or text, then your recent calls with them. Messaging and Mailbox use it. It can sync with your own Nextcloud or other CardDAV server, and nothing else.

The Kompakt lock screen: today's four events, the weather, unread texts and missed calls under the clock, and Music Box's controls above the padlock

Glance

Today's events, the weather and what is unread, on the lock screen, from Datebook, Sky, Messaging and Mailbox, with pinned notes and the next dose too, in the size you choose. Press a line to open its app; press power twice for the torch.

Whereabouts Commands tab: the bluetooth and bluetoothscan commands, each listing the permissions it needs with Grant buttons

Whereabouts

Finds your phone when it is lost: where it is, a ring, a lock. With its server, the people who share with you appear on one map. Another app can ask it where you are, once, and it asks you first.

The calendar for November 2026: period days 2 to 4 filled in, today boxed, a dotted fertile window from the 12th to the 19th with ovulation marked on the 17th, and a legend below

Cycle

A cycle tracker with no permissions at all. It records periods, mood, symptoms, cervical mucus and ovulation tests, expects what comes next, and keeps everything on the phone. Every period day is confirmed by hand, so nothing in the record is a day it guessed.

Dream Log's log screen: the Arm for the night button above dreams grouped by night

Dream Log

Arm it before sleep; if a dream wakes you, press a volume key in the dark and say it. By morning it is written down, transcribed on the phone itself. Each dream keeps its recording, and its words can go to Memo or your Nextcloud.

Practice's Today page: five habits with their cue lines and streaks, three ticked for the day

Practice

A meditation timer and a habit tracker. Sit with a warm-up and an interval bell, or breathe by 4-7-8, box or your own counts. Your own habits keep streaks, rest days and a month of days. Every sitting is logged; the bells ring on time.

Medicine's Today screen: yesterday's 9:00 PM Magnesium dose not marked, then today's eye drops, Amoxicillin and Vitamin D doses with skipped and taken times

Medicine

Reminders that ring at each dose, answered from the lock screen with Taken, Skip or Snooze. Every dose goes into a log, rung or not, and a refill can go into Datebook. It reminds and keeps a record; it does not advise.

Wallet's card list: two favorites (Greenfield Co-op, Harbor Library), tickets not yet valid, a gym pass valid until Dec 31, and a pool pass marked Expired

Wallet

Loyalty and library cards, tickets and boarding passes, drawn as barcodes a scanner reads off this screen. Scan one in, or read it from a picture, PDF or pass file. Catima underneath. A ticket's days can go into Datebook. No internet.

Bitcoin's Transact tab: a testnet wallet's latest transactions (sent and received, Oct 31 to Nov 3)

Bitcoin

A Bitcoin wallet for a Blockstream Jade, which keeps the keys and signs over Bluetooth. Send and receive, or hold two phones back to back to hand a payment request across. Bitcoin only, with no Lightning, Liquid or swaps; Blockstream's Green underneath.

Passwords' Codes tab: five made-up accounts, each with its six-digit two-step code and the seconds left

Passwords

Sign-ins and their two-step codes in a KeePass file, the same one KeePassXC opens on a computer. Press a code to copy it; fill sign-ins in other apps. It locks when the screen goes dark; a copy clears after thirty seconds. No internet.

Abacus's Calculate page: a bracketed sum, (48.50−12.75)÷2 = 17.875, with (1,250+375)×1.08 = 1,755 above it in the history

Abacus

Sums with brackets and the scientific functions a page away, a graph of up to three curves, and a programmer's calculator in four bases. Converts 24 kinds of unit, currency included, and counts days between dates. 0.1 + 0.2 comes to 0.3. Unitto underneath.

Time's Timer tab: Tea 5 min ready to start, Bread and Laundry running with the time each rings, and a 1 h Slow cooker timer

Time

Alarms without a limit, in groups such as Office and Home that switch on, off or skip a day together. Timers that ring with the phone locked, a stopwatch, a world clock. With Sky, a line of weather as it rings.

Reading, writing, listening

Audio Reader's player: The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame, chapter 4 Mr. Badger at 0:11:35 of 0:30:30, with Back, Sleep, Speed, Marks, Lock and More along the top

Audio Reader

An audiobook player. Point it at a folder of books, tell it once how they are laid out, and it keeps your place in each one. It also reads an Audiobookshelf server or a Nextcloud folder. Chapters, a sleep timer, playback speed and bookmarks.

The Songs list in Music Box: made-up songs by Nina Park, Tomas Reyes Quartet and Ada Whitlock

Music Box

A music player for a folder of your own music, a music server you run, internet radio and YouTube Music. Downloads stay on the phone as ordinary music files. Rename any song, album or artist, and heart the songs you love.

Feeds listing the feeds, the Podcasts folder opened on two NASA podcasts, a gemlog among them

Feeds

Feeds read as plain text, with Gemini, gopher and Spartan alongside, and podcasts played under their show notes, marked once heard; fetched on wifi, read with the radio off. The volume keys turn the page. No account, or sync with FreshRSS, Miniflux or Nextcloud News.

Typewriter showing a page of writing, held sideways

Typewriter

A text editor that opens in landscape and stays there, for writing with a keyboard connected to the phone. What you write is plain text, in a folder you choose. It saves when you pause, and never over a file that changed elsewhere.

Dictionary's word page for "quiet": pronunciation, part of speech, numbered meanings with example lines, and tappable opposite and near words

Dictionary

An English dictionary and thesaurus in the menu over selected text, in any app. Press another word and it goes back into what you were writing. Geese finds goose and stopped finds stop, among some 136,000 words, all on the phone.

Memo's note list, newest first: a pinned Groceries list at the top, then notes filed in Home and Trips folders, with the scan, voice-note and new-note buttons at the side

Memo

Notes, lists and scanned pages, as plain Markdown on your own Nextcloud or the phone. A shared list can be ticked on one phone while added to on another. Voice notes are written down on the phone; Desktop Sync opens it all on your computer.

Recipes: Lemon Barley Soup scaled to serve 6, the first two ingredients ticked off

Recipes

A recipe book that keeps a recipe page's words, not the life story above them. Send what you lack to Memo as a shopping list, and cook a step to a screen with Time timers. Your Nextcloud keeps a copy.

Translate turning a Spanish note to Ada into English, with Copy, Share and To Memo buttons below

Translate

Translation between English and 59 languages, on the phone, in the menu over selected text beside Dictionary. Words in a picture too. Each language downloads once; nothing translated leaves the phone. A translation can be copied, shared or sent to Memo.

Shelf's Shelf order tab in Sections: Fiction (3) and Crime & mystery (2) with numbered books, a search-the-catalog field, and a 'Try again' button for the one book not found

Shelf

Scan a book's barcode and Shelf finds its Dewey number and its place on your shelves, by number or in broad sections with Fiction first. Shared through Nextcloud, or saved as a spreadsheet. With Audio Reader, Listen opens a book you have a recording of.

KOReader's reading menu over a book, in Lato with black lines between the rows

KOReader, Kompakt look

Not an app but a patch for KOReader, which already reads everything, so that it looks like the Kompakt's own apps: Lato, larger type and icons, taller rows, black lines. It needs KOReader's own build; the F-Droid one skips patches.

Outdoors

Birding listening: birds named as they are heard, each with the time and how sure it is

Birding

Names the birds it hears, offline, with BirdNET running on the phone itself. Where you are and the week of the year leave out birds that cannot be here. A bird's eBird and Wikipedia pages are a press away, opened in your browser.

Mushroom Journal's page for Amanita bisporigera, the destroying angel: "This one can kill", comes on in 6–24 hours, a line drawing of the mushroom, and what to look for

Mushroom Journal

Write a mushroom down while standing over it, and work out at home what it might be. It covers the southern Appalachians for now. A find can go to someone who knows. It narrows a list, never decides, and says nothing about eating one.

Detour's walk screen: a compass arrow pointing north-northeast, 1.0 mi, a coordinate near Greenwich, and a notice that random places can be private property or unsafe, above Open in maps and Somewhere else buttons

Detour

Press once and it picks somewhere near you to walk to, inside the distance you chose, with no particular reason to go there, and gives you an arrow and a distance to follow. There is no map; the coordinate opens in the phone's map app.

USGS topo of Yosemite Valley with a recorded track and marked places, with no setup

Topo

Maps for walking off the road: contours, trails and forest roads, offline once an area is downloaded. Public land and lot lines need region packs from a server of your own. Tracks go to CalTopo; a .gpx from Cabinet opens here.

Parked: a spot marked 26 minutes ago with the note "Lot B, near the stairs", How far? reading 510 ft W, and a parking meter counting down to 4:05 PM

Parked

Remembers where you left the car. Press a button as you get out and it marks the spot; press another on the way back and it says how far and which way. A parking meter rings before time is up. No internet permission.

Mesh in a conversation with a neighbor, the last message still waiting for a confirmation

Mesh

A companion for MeshCore and Meshtastic LoRa radios. Messages go over Bluetooth to the radio beside you and out through a mesh that needs no towers, no carrier and no internet. Channels, their QR codes and the radio's settings are all in the app.

Sky's Today page: 50°F, mostly cloudy, ENE wind 13 mph with gusts to 29, the high and low, no rain likely in the next 12 hours, and a strip of hourly temperatures

Sky

The days ahead, the rain radar, the moon and the sun's hours, and your own weather station if you have one. In the US, weather and wildfire alerts. Air quality too, modeled rather than measured. With Glance, the weather on the lock screen.

Patient assessment at the primary stage: Alert and Minor bleeding picked, with End and Note in the top bar

Field Kit

Thirty-six first-aid pages that open on what to do now, a patient assessment in the words the courses use, twelve knots, a compass with your position, SOS on the camera flash, and an emergency card Glance can show. No internet.

Instruments

Tuner set to guitar in drop D, the strings' notes laid out

Tuner

A tuner, chromatic or by instrument, with a pitch plot, a cents readout and temperaments well past equal, and a metronome a tap away. In tune is read from where the needle sits on the center line, never from a color.

Hum's piano roll for a take called Kitchen waltz, in G major at 120 a minute, with the note D5 chosen and the edit buttons below

Hum

Hum or sing a tune and it is written down as notes on a piano roll, to fix there and send to a computer as MIDI or sheet music. A click can count you in. One line of melody; chords are not read.

Engraver showing a Romanesca engraved on two staves with figured bass, compiled in a second

Engraver

Type LilyPond and get an engraved score: LilyPond itself runs on the phone, offline, in well under a second once warm. Scores live as plain .ly files in a folder you pick, includes and all, each with a PDF beside it. No network.

Level showing a tilt along one edge

Level

A spirit level that knows whether it is lying flat or standing on an edge, and shows the right vial for each. It says level only when it is. Degrees or percent, calibrated for each way it is held, and a sound when level.

Speedometer at 20 mph, with altitude, position and air pressure below

Speedometer

How fast you are going, how high you are, and what the air is doing. Press the speed and it fills the screen. No map, no history, and your position never leaves the phone. Not accurate enough to navigate by.

Star Chart's sky chart over Greenwich with constellation figures and star names, planets marked, and the bottom row: minus, Facing north, Point, plus

Star Chart

The sky over you as a paper star atlas draws it, black on white: nine thousand stars, the constellations and planets, at any moment and place. Hold up the phone and press Point for the sky it faces. Tap anything for its altitude and bearing.

Car Check listing a stored and a pending trouble code

Car Check

What the check-engine light is on for, read through a Bluetooth OBD-II adapter. Each code says whether it is stored or only pending, and clearing them tells you when the car refuses. The codes can go to Datebook as a reminder or into Memo.

The remote, connected to a Kodi called Front Room

Remote

A Bluetooth remote, keyboard and mouse for a television, a media box or a computer. Nothing to install: it pairs as a keyboard does. Kodi works over Wi-Fi too. A d-pad or touchpad, media and channel buttons, the volume keys put to work.

Games

Go, a game in progress on a nine by nine board

Go

A game of Go on a 9×9 board, against GNU Go or the person opposite, with handicaps, a hint when you want one, and the board counted at the end. Set up a position from a book and play it out.

A two-player game of Chess+: Black's name at the top, White's turn boxed below the board. White has castled and has picked up the d-pawn, with the squares it can reach marked and Black's last move framed

Chess+

The phone's own chess app, with a second player added: two people on one board, passing the phone back and forth between moves. Or play the computer at twelve strengths. A move waits until you confirm it, and can be taken back even after checkmate.

Handheld Games playing a homebrew puzzle game

Handheld Games

Game Boy games, drawn in four grays for a screen that has no color. The picture lands at exactly three times size, so nothing is resampled. Puzzle and turn-based games play well, and Zelda too; a game that scrolls, like Mario, does not.

Klondike under way, drawing three: a fan of three cards on the waste, the ace of hearts on its foundation, and the ten of diamonds built on the jack of spades

Solitaire

Klondike, FreeCell and Spider. Tap a card and it goes to the best place it can; tap again for the next. Nothing moves on its own. FreeCell deals are numbered as Microsoft's are, and a game under way survives a restart. No timer, no score.

Tarot's Today screen: the date, the Ace of Wands at full height, and the card's name underneath (the meaning is one page down)

Tarot

A card for the day, three spreads and a journal of readings, with Pamela Colman Smith's 1909 pictures in grays and a short meaning for each card, upright and reversed. The meanings say what a card is about; they do not predict anything.

An I Ching reading: the question asked, hexagram 51 with its changing line marked, an arrow to hexagram 16 it becomes, and the start of Legge's judgment

I Ching

The Book of Changes in James Legge's 1882 translation. Cast a hexagram with three coins or yarrow-stalk odds, line by line, and read the judgment, the changing lines and the hexagram it becomes. A hexagram for the day, a journal, and all 64.

Stop motion

One app for Android phones: the capture half of a stop-motion practice. The film is put together elsewhere.

Stop Motion's capture screen over a frame from a stop-motion film: two felt puppets at a hole in a mossy stone wall, with the lens, shutter, Review, Settings, Lock and Compare down the side

Stop Motion

Stop-motion capture for Android phones; on the Xiaomi 17 Ultra it reaches all three rear lenses where other apps find one. The exposure locks for the whole film, with onion skin, drawn guides, an interval timer and RAW on every lens.