Open Source

Doorplate DIY

A WiFi-connected e-ink meeting room sign you build in an afternoon.

Five built-in modes plus unlimited custom — Five built-in modes — Meeting Room, Studio, Lab, Focus, Custom

Standard and Premium kits — Standard B&W or Premium 6-color e-ink — both ~$50–70 in parts

Studio mode: ON AIR placard with pulsing red badge — Studio mode — ON AIR with calendar-driven session titles

Home office mode: orange DO NOT DISTURB placard — Focus mode — DO NOT DISTURB driven by your work + family calendars

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The hardware shop in your closet

Conference rooms shouldn't need a $400 vendor sign and a SaaS subscription to tell people whether they're free. Doorplate DIY pairs a $25 Waveshare e-ink panel with a $10 ESP32 driver board and a Flask control panel that runs on any Mac. Total parts cost: about the price of one month of the thing it replaces.

ESP32 wakes every 15 min, pulls room state over HTTP, redraws, sleeps
Five preset modes — Meeting Room, Studio, Lab, Focus, Custom
Multi-room: one server drives any number of signs, each with its own schedule
ICS calendar sync (Google, Apple, Outlook, Calendly) — color-coded sources
Battery option: ~1 month on a 2000 mAh LiPo, mount it anywhere

Test it without buying anything

You can run the whole stack with zero hardware. The control panel ships with a pixel-accurate browser preview that mirrors what the e-ink will render, plus a PIL-based PNG renderer that uses the same fonts and layout as the ESPHome firmware. Decide you like it before you order parts.

Stack Python · Flask · ESPHome

Parts cost $50–70

License MIT

Source GitHub

Read the build guide and BOMs at github.com/dataandops/doorplate-diy, or visit doorplate-diy.com for the design kit and waitlist for pre-assembled kits.