Your music, one turn away.

OwlTunes is a Spotify remote with a round AMOLED face and a ring you turn for volume. It charges on its perch by your desk and goes in your pocket when you leave.

Set up your owl Read the source

The owl docked on its perch, showing the track that is playing

The owl on its perch on an oak desk, next to a mug and a phone

At your desk

On the perch it charges through spring contacts and stays on as a small display for what is playing. The perch is weighted and holds the owl with magnets, so turning the ring does not move it.

The owl slid into the pocket of a pair of jeans

In your pocket

Lift it off the perch and it runs on its own battery. It reaches Spotify over your home Wi-Fi or your phone's hotspot. With no internet at all, the ears and the beak still work as Bluetooth media keys.

62volume

Drag the ring, scroll, or use the arrow keys. Each click is 2 percent.

Made to use without looking

Ring: Volume, or scroll a list with a click for every item
Tap the cover: Play or pause
Left or right ear: Previous or next track
Hold the left ear and turn: Pick one of eight presets, release to play it
Hold the right ear: Like the track
Beak: Back; hold it for Now Playing

Drawn for a round screen

Now playing, your playlists, the preset wheel and the device picker, laid out for a 466 by 466 AMOLED where black pixels are simply off. These are frames from the simulator, which runs the same UI code as the owl.

Exploded view: cover glass, screen, bezel, ring, body, main board, battery and back cover

Inside

A 4-layer board around an ESP32-S3, a magnetic ring read by a Hall sensor, and a small linear motor that gives every detent its click, in a nylon enclosure printed by MJF. The renders on this page come from the same KiCad and CAD files that go to the factory.

Display: 1.75 inch round AMOLED, 466 x 466, touch
Controls: Haptic ring, two ear buttons, beak button
Processor: ESP32-S3, 16 MB flash, 8 MB PSRAM
Connectivity: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth LE
Sensors: Ring position, motion, ambient light
Power: LiPo battery, USB-C, perch charging
Size: 66 x 84 x 24 mm
Perch: Weighted, magnetic, tilted 17.5 degrees

Nobody can switch it off

Spotify disabled every Car Thing in December 2024. OwlTunes keeps what matters on your side: firmware you can build and flash yourself, boards and an enclosure you can order from the files in the repository, and buttons that keep working without internet.

	Car Thing	OwlTunes
Power	USB cable in the car	Battery, plus a charging perch
Connection	Through the phone app	Straight to Spotify over Wi-Fi
Offline	Stopped working	Bluetooth media keys
Output	The phone	Any Spotify Connect device
Source	Closed, switched off remotely	Open, updated from public releases

Owl v0 standing on an oak desk, showing the track that is playing

Owl v0 comes first

The first owl is built round Waveshare's round AMOLED kit, which brings the screen, the ESP32-S3, USB-C and the charger. Six printed parts give it the ring, the ears and the beak. The perch and the haptic clicks come with the owl's own board, rev A.

Where it stands

Firmware runs on an ESP32-S3 dev board against a real Spotify account, and the display and touch drivers for the owl are written and waiting for the first boards.
Owl v0, the owl built round Waveshare's AMOLED kit with the ring, ears and beak, is designed and checked, and its parts are being ordered. Hardware rev A follows it.
Next: the first owl v0 assembled, its button and ring drivers, then rev A and its haptics.