[HN Gopher] MicroPythonOS graphical operating system delivers An...
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MicroPythonOS graphical operating system delivers Android-like user
experience
Author : mikece
Score : 161 points
Date : 2026-01-29 16:54 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cnx-software.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cnx-software.com)
| sillywalk wrote:
| Interesting.
|
| https://micropythonos.com/
|
| https://github.com/MicroPythonOS/MicroPythonOS
|
| https://fosdem.org/2026/schedule/event/9GGXNF-micropythonos-...
| larodi wrote:
| Indeed much better resource than this ads ridden page...
| FergusArgyll wrote:
| https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/ublock-origin-
| lite/...
| jonjacky wrote:
| Previously on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45525804
| hulitu wrote:
| > Android-like user experience
|
| so crap. No inovation those days.
| functionmouse wrote:
| What would you have wanted to see?
| hulitu wrote:
| At the first look: clear delimitation of UI elements, usable
| scrollbars.
| Melonai wrote:
| I mean I kind of get your frustration, but I don't think
| innovating the user interface is not really the goal of this
| project, the opposite actually, it's moreso trying to provide a
| well-known user interface to devices where that was previously
| hard, so the goal is to be similar.
|
| I would like to see some fresh ideas in UI though, everything
| is the same nowadays... :(
| squarefoot wrote:
| It's FOSS, so you can use it primarily for output with real
| switches and knobs for input. But then just using plain LVGL
| would probably be more practical.
| b00ty4breakfast wrote:
| MIT lisenced; feel free to fork it if your feeling especially
| filial
| rpdillon wrote:
| I really wish people would stop trying to innovate with user
| interfaces. In a comment below you criticize this UI because it
| doesn't have delimited interface elements. I agree that non-
| delimited user interface is really bad, but I attribute that
| mostly to Microsoft's flat design innovation, which I didn't
| like at the time, and I still wish I hadn't had so much
| influence.
|
| As for invisible scroll bars, again we agree. But I think that
| was Apple. I'm sure somebody will correct me if it wasn't.
| nunobrito wrote:
| That "Android-like" is based on LVGL which is a brilliant GUI
| framework for ESP32 (not invented for this project) when you
| consider the low capacities of the hardware and how efficiently
| it pulls the animations.
|
| If Android had such GUI, it would be a heck lot faster and
| drink less energy.
| cbdevidal wrote:
| Love me some MicroPython. Building a product line of small farm
| security devices that use uPy and MQTT.
| westurner wrote:
| Will MicroPythonOS also work with CircuitPython?
|
| CircuitPython docs > Differences from MicroPython:
| https://docs.circuitpython.org/en/latest/README.html#differe...
|
| Also, there's pipkin:
| https://github.com/aivarannamaa/pipkin#pipkin :
|
| > _Tool for managing distribution packages for MicroPython and
| CircuitPython on target devices or in a local directory._
|
| > _Supports mip- and upip-compatible packages, and regular pip-
| compatible packages_
|
| Hopefully - for 3 types of packages - pipkin supports GPG
| signatures, PyPI's TUF, and/or sigstore attestations like pip?
|
| Just checked; pip doesn't support checking PEP740 attestations
| yet either?
|
| pipkin: https://github.com/aivarannamaa/pipkin
|
| trailofbits/pip-plugin-pep740:
| https://github.com/trailofbits/pip-plugin-pep740
| delijati wrote:
| how does it compare to https://github.com/wasp-os/wasp-os?
| shawnz wrote:
| Wow, these preassembled ESP32 plus touchscreen boards are
| extremely cheap, and there are tons of them in all kinds of
| different form factors on Amazon. I didn't realize this kind of
| thing was so plentiful, this seems like a great way to bootstrap
| many kinds of electronics/IoT projects
| brcmthrowaway wrote:
| Any commercial products using ESP?
| bdavbdav wrote:
| I think there are plenty using espressif chips. One of my
| robot vacuums (possibly the Neato?) certainly appeared to be.
| saidinesh5 wrote:
| Just look for ESP32 CYD - CYD stands for cheap yellow
| display. There are a lot of variants.
|
| https://github.com/witnessmenow/ESP32-Cheap-Yellow-
| Display?t... . I bought mine for about $12 and it's been
| quite fun tinkering with it.
| shawnz wrote:
| AFAIK my humidifier uses an ESP32 chip.
| slmkbh wrote:
| A lot of Shelly devices use ESP chips:
| https://www.shelly.com/ - And they are hackable!
| bri3d wrote:
| https://templates.blakadder.com/esp32.html
|
| Here's a list of just a few. They're insanely popular not
| only because they're just good to use, but also because
| they're one of the cheaper FCC approved modules you can buy,
| which takes a lot of the pain out of bringing a product to
| market.
| MallocVoidstar wrote:
| Yes, many. As a random example, see:
| https://www.servethehome.com/ubiquiti-flex-
| mini-2-5g-review-...
|
| The last image on the page shows various chips in the switch,
| the top left is an ESP32.
| frogperson wrote:
| Yeah ESP32 is an awesome rabbit hole. An esp32-c6, cheap yellow
| display, and a 3d printer and you can build some really
| interesting things.
| MomsAVoxell wrote:
| I would love to have this, but Lua not Python.
| moffkalast wrote:
| Mathematicians don't build GUIs, and nobody else can stand
| starting their arrays with 1.
| dlcarrier wrote:
| Lua also let's you start arrays at 3.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| As does Perl with `$[`[0][1]
|
| [0] "This variable stores the index of the first element in
| an array, and of the first character in a substring."
|
| [1] With the caveat: 'As of Perl v5.30.0, or under "use
| v5.16", or "no feature "array_base"", $[ no longer has any
| effect"'
| ErroneousBosh wrote:
| You can start your arrays in Lua at 0. Conventionally you
| don't, but you can.
| te0006 wrote:
| Does it run on the CYD?
| https://github.com/witnessmenow/ESP32-Cheap-Yellow-Display
| bvan wrote:
| Looks better than any Python GUI framework I've seen..
| ErroneousBosh wrote:
| Can we port it to Intel, I wonder...?
| sintezcs wrote:
| It uses LVGL https://github.com/lvgl/lvgl
| skeledrew wrote:
| I reckon you've never seen flet.
|
| https://flet.dev
| PyWoody wrote:
| That looks interesting. I had not heard of flet.
|
| How do you like it? How easy is it to work withe the layout
| controls?
| skeledrew wrote:
| It's a mixed bag, as it's still not stable (esp as very
| recently declarative support was added in what was likely a
| mostly-rewrite). But when it works, it works great (I've
| only tried on Linux and Android).
| hkt wrote:
| I'd use it. I'd be curious to see how close to daily driving it
| is for stuff like calls, SMS, and email. Something not driven by
| a giant data mining company would be splendid.
| amelius wrote:
| Does it support the threading module?
| skeledrew wrote:
| Interesting. Would want to see this going on actual Android.
| Especially since I have a few Python GUI projects going which I
| intend to use on Android (but currently using flet).
|
| https://flet.dev
| bri3d wrote:
| It's LVGL based, if the GUI and widgets are what you wanted you
| could use that on Android, although if you have access to
| native Android this actually doesn't seem like the best
| approach to me.
| iberator wrote:
| Micro python is the last hope for Python. Python simplicity got
| destroyed by a bunch of new wave of programmers who packed a lot
| of new useless features into it in the past 10 yrars. Now it's
| NOT easy and small language as it used to be...
|
| Feature creep is an awful side effect. I would love to have
| language having just few add-ons per decade so I can grasp it all
| InitEnabler wrote:
| Which useless features?
| iberator wrote:
| All of them. Starting with syntax changes or type hints....
| (Python should be always and only be duck typed forever as
| designed by God itself (it's creator).
| wiseowise wrote:
| > Python should be always and only be duck typed forever as
| designed by God itself (it's creator).
|
| Isn't Guido the one who came up with type hints spec and
| made the reference implementation (Mypy)?
| vpribish wrote:
| async is the big one. it was half-baked
| nikitau wrote:
| Amazing. We have actually gone full circle reactionary on the
| typing debate where duck typing is considered the
| "traditional" way by some.
| wewewedxfgdf wrote:
| >> "the last hope for Python"
|
| Python is in the top 3 programming languages in the world.
| wiseowise wrote:
| Being lingua franca of AI and scripting world isn't enough
| for GP.
| VK-pro wrote:
| This is kind of a strange take to me given that Python is
| quickly becoming the default for many projects that 1) are not
| indexing for speed/efficiency and 2) is not on the web (and
| sometimes this only applies for frontend). There are plenty of
| cases where that statement is incorrect but I think you get my
| point.
|
| I think I read a title on HN that was literally titled "Why
| Python Won" in late 2025.
| 12_throw_away wrote:
| So, am I right in assuming that ESP32, being simple and slow,
| isn't going to have cache lines or anything, and would just need
| 1-2 cycles to access its RAM? In which case a pointer-chasing
| dynamic language like python wouldn't have all of the typical
| performance penalties from constant cache misses?
|
| EDIT: upon further research, I think the above assumptions are
| more or less all wrong, starting with the "simple" part. To start
| with, they're Harvard-architecture-ish with separate memory
| pathways - and caches - for data and instructions, so off the bat
| they have more heterogeneity than your modern general purpose
| CPUs. Also there seems to be a very wide variety of memory
| mappings, buses, and caching systems within ESP32 "family". [1]
|
| [1] https://developer.espressif.com/blog/2024/08/esp32-memory-
| ma...
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(page generated 2026-02-01 23:00 UTC)