DIY community

A developer has released Marelleo, an open-source story box built for their children using the ESP32 microcontroller. The project's details and documentation are published on a personal blog, and it is drawing attention in the tech community for combining DIY hardware, audio storytelling, and open-source code in a family-friendly device.

A new tool called Fabivo lets users upload a photo of a piece of furniture and get back a numbered cut list for building it. The project was shared as a Show HN launch, drawing early attention and discussion from makers and DIY enthusiasts interested in photo-based furniture design and automated woodworking plans.

A developer has launched WhereWhen, a travel planner app, saying the idea came after growing tired of managing trips through spreadsheets. The project was shared with an online community of makers and early adopters, where it drew interest and likes. People are discussing the app as a simpler alternative to manually organising itineraries, dates and destinations.

A home cook reports that a batch of fermented cabbage has come out especially well, sharing the result enthusiastically with an online cooking community. Fermenting cabbage, as in sauerkraut or kimchi, is a popular DIY food project, and successes and failures are often swapped among home fermenters. Beyond one person's happy result, no broader news is attached to the item.

Love A Brother Radio (LABR), a community radio station, is broadcasting a Friday night live show titled 'Banging in Brighton' with presenter Liam Wabbit. The stream features drum and bass, house and soulful house music and is being carried via its own online streaming service. Engagement is modest so far, but the broadcast is being shared within the federated community radio and DIY streaming scene.

A Finnish hobbyist has taught herself to weave on pirtakangaspuu, a traditional rigid heddle loom, and finished a wool scarf of roughly 2.5 metres. She says she was surprised by how well it turned out, since the threads on the loom looked uneven and sparse, and notes the technique can be done without a shed stick. The post has drawn warm engagement from the Finnish handcraft community.

A new open-source web editor lets Home Assistant users turn a inexpensive $25 generic display sourced from AliExpress into a functional smart-home dashboard. The tool makes it easier to configure and control the screen without expensive proprietary hardware, opening DIY dashboards to more hobbyists. It is being shared as a budget-friendly option for the smart-home community.

A farm collective in Austria says it is far from done with this year's chilli harvest, jokingly warning that plenty more work remains. The update, shared with photos and tagged across gardening, farming and vegetable-growing communities, drew a small but warm response from home-growing and market-gardening followers.

A crafter has begun a do-it-yourself hoodie project in the solarpunk style, gluing fabric appliqué letters and a sun motif onto the back before stitching them down. The project combines sewing and DIY craft with the solarpunk aesthetic, and is being shared with other makers and sewing enthusiasts online.

Oversized solar panels are being showcased, drawing strong attention from the off-grid and solar energy community. Viewers are reacting to the sheer scale of the hardware and discussing what such large-format panels mean for home installations and DIY solar setups, with engagement topping a quarter of a million.

A tech writer has 3D printed a custom bicep mount, dubbed a 'Fitbit Air bicep mod', that lets the fitness tracker be worn on the upper arm instead of the wrist so it can sit discreetly under a sleeve. The homemade accessory highlights how 3D printing lets users adapt wearables to their own comfort and style preferences.

A French user reports receiving a min(amame) kit from head(amame), designed for building a personalised headphone at home. They highlight that the plastic parts can be 3D-printed in the colour of their choice, that the design is highly repairable, and that sound quality is very good, even varying depending on the printing settings used for the ear cups.

A new web tool called Etch2Plot studio converts ordinary images into etch-style SVG files designed for pen plotters, making it easier for DIY plotting enthusiasts to prepare artwork. The service, available at etch2plot.evangineer.net, was shared in DIY and development circles on October 31, 2026, drawing interest from the plotting community.

A new international DIY punk cassette compilation called Yes Liberation is being praised for its wide range of bands and sounds. It is the third in a series of benefit compilations from the group behind it, with proceeds going to a cause, and early listeners say it contains a lot of great material worth checking out.

A developer is sharing progress on a DIY weather station built around an ESP32-CAM module. The prototype runs on a custom low-level firmware stack using Zephyr RTOS, bridging the local hardware directly to n8n automation workflows. Bench testing is underway, with an early temperature reading of 24.5°C posted from a live test feed as development continues.

An open source project lets learners practice Japanese on the Inkplate 4Tempera, an eInk display board. The build turns the low-power e-paper device into a dedicated study tool, with the project's files and code shared publicly so others can reproduce or adapt it. It is being shared among electronics and language-learning hobbyists interested in DIY gadgets.

A maker is documenting the build of a 3D-printed 'SoundBase' for the board game Gloomhaven, where each miniature stands on a 33 mm hexagon base. Pressing a figure would trigger a matching sound effect — a sword clash, spell, or monster growl. The project combines 3D printing, audio electronics, and tabletop gaming, with a step-by-step thread of the process.

A clothing swap event is being held at the Chaos Computer Club in Freiburg, Adlerstrasse 12a, on Friday at 13:12. Organisers are teasing preparations including DIY lino printing and T-shirt printing, with participants invited to exchange clothes. The gathering combines upcycling and maker culture, with the club space located opposite the Strandcafe, and it doubles as a small social party for the local community.

With autumn beginning, members of the Hofkollektiv, a communal farm and craft collective in Austria, are turning their attention to winter projects. The next task in their workshop is building a door, which is now in production. They shared photos of the woodworking work, drawing small but warm engagement from the DIY and craftsmanship community.

A maker has built a small animatronic dragon, combining sculpting, mechanics and programming, with the goal of making a stranger smile. The project, shared with the maker community ahead of Halloween, is drawing attention for blending engineering skill with a genuinely kind gesture rather than a purely technical showcase.

A German-speaking cyclist has documented a full do-it-yourself dynamo replacement on a cargo bike: unscrewing the old unit, disconnecting the wiring, cleaning the contacts, fitting a new brand dynamo, and testing it. The new dynamo cost 30 euros and is expected to last around ten years, a cost framed as cheap and proof that simple repairs can be done at home.

German tech blogger Jörg Hofmann of meintechblog.de is featured in a new community portrait detailing his smart home energy system. His setup includes 30 kWp of solar panels, a 100 kWh DIY LFP battery with 108 cells, and two Teslas charged via two openWB Pro chargers managed by evcc. Notably, everything runs locally with no cloud dependence, using local AI agents for each domain.

A maker has published open-source plans for a DIY recycled plastic sheet pressing machine, allowing anyone to turn plastic waste into usable sheets at home. The release is being credited with inspiring a wave of small-scale recycling projects worldwide, as people build their own presses and share results. Supporters say it shows how freely shared designs can push grassroots plastic recycling forward.

A hobbyist is documenting a daily DIY project, soldering a breakout board for Valetuda-compatible robot vacuum hardware — day three of an ongoing series that will continue until their Dreame robot vacuum arrives. Valetudo is an open-source firmware that replaces cloud connectivity on Dreame vacuums, and the build has drawn attention in the open hardware and robotics community.

A hobbyist has finished 3D-printing the parts for a home lab rack and is reviewing the assembly instructions before putting it together tomorrow. They praise the guide as brilliant and are asking which tool was used to create it. The build comes from a home lab rack kit marketed online, drawing interest from the self-hosting and 3D-printing communities.