We’re excited to share that @Thomas Farstrike , creator of MicroPythonOS, will be presenting at FOSDEM 2026! His talk, “MicroPythonOS: Best of Android, Now on MCUs,” will explore how Android-style user experiences are coming to microcontrollers — a big step forward for open-source embedded systems. 👉

FOSDEM 2026 - MicroPythonOS: the best of Android, now on Microcontrollers. AppStore, OTA Updates, Touch Screen, Camera and much more!

FOSDEM is one of the world’s largest free and open-source developer conferences, bringing thousands of builders to Brussels each year to meet, share ideas, and collaborate. Best of all: it’s completely free — no registration required. Just turn up and join in.

Christmas has come early 🎄 Huge thanks to the @LNbits community for making it even easier to configure LightningPiggy 2.0 with LNbits. With LNbits v1.4, the server name is now viewable as an optional QR. That means configuring LightningPiggy 2.0 with LNbits as its wallet now requires just two QR codes to scan. And the entire setup can be done on a mobile phone. We’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has supported the project along the way. It’s been humbling to see the excitement and joy on kids’ faces (young and old!) receiving zaps on their piggies. We’re excited about what’s ahead and can’t wait to build, ship, and share even more in the year to come. Wishing you and your loved ones a very Merry Christmas! Let’s make sats the savings standard for every child ⚡🐽 Team LightingPiggy

Freedom Farm News: Oink-credible news for LightningPiggy 2.0 owners! MicroPythonOS, the belly of the beast, has been freshly upgraded with some seriously tasty improvements. Time to tuck in ⚡️🐽👩‍🌾 MPOS 0.5.1 Release Highlights A brand-new Camera experience The Camera app has received a major overhaul with new Basic, Advanced, and Expert modes. Scanning QR codes is now dramatically more powerful; even tiny, high-density codes (like Nostr Wallet Connect) on phone screens, damaged images, or codes with logos and dots are decoded reliably. Better image handling You can now delete images directly from ImageView, and grayscale images are fully supported. Smarter updates & connectivity System updates now automatically pause if Wi-Fi drops and resume when you’re back online. The Wi-Fi app also feels smoother thanks to improved keyboard handling and fixed cancel behaviour. Improved hardware support Fri3d Camp 2024 boards gain startup light and sound feedback, more accurate battery readings, and full support for the WSEN-ISDS 6-axis IMU — including temperature sensing. More control Storage usage is now visible in the About app, IMU calibration has been added to Settings, and the back-swipe gesture intelligently closes the top menu when it’s open. Under-the-hood improvements New audio, lighting, and sensor APIs unlock richer apps, smoother animations, and better hardware integration across the system. Credits * @Thomas Farstrike * Mark19000 ref. UI: back swipe gesture closes topmenu when open

MicroPythonOS - The Ultimate MicroPython Operating System

Team LightningPiggy

LightningPiggy

LightningPiggy

Lightning Piggy - An open source Bitcoin piggy bank for kids. Save in satoshis over the Lightning Network.

LightingPiggy is an electronic cash piggy bank for children, that accepts Bitcoin sent over the Lightning Network. It displays payment amounts, messages, and the total satoshis saved. Our vision is to make bitcoin the savings’ standard for every child, while creating an educational platform to inspire future generations, not only to save in bitcoin, but also to learn to code and build in a free and open-source way. #LightningPiggy #STEMM #BitcoinKids #FOSS #BuildInPublic #bitcoin

Freedom Farm News: MicroPythonOS 0.5.0 has left the barn and is running wild! LightningPiggy 2.0 owners, you’ll want to roll in the mud with this one ⚡️🐽👩‍🌾 ESP32 / Core * Unified build system: now one build to rule them all. A single firmware image auto-detects and initializes any supported board at runtime. MposKeyboard * Fixed bug where **q, Q, 1, ~** keys were unclickable * Increased keyboard font size 16 → 20 * Replaced newline symbol with a checkbox for “OK, Ready” * Enlarged space bar for easier typing OSUpdate App * Simplified network handling using ConnectivityManager * Updated logic to support new device IDs ImageView App * Improved error handling and overall robustness Settings App * Tweaked font sizing for improved readability * Added new option: “Format internal data partition” * Fixed checkbox + button interaction issues UI / UX Improvements * Pass-through: clicks on the invisible “gesture swipe start” area are now correctly forwarded * Back/down gesture icons now show only during swipe, not on tap * Doubled the size of the back/down gesture activation zones * Increased overall gesture sensitivity * Fixed visual glitches during UI animations API / System * Added instrumentation hooks (screengrabs, mouse-click simulation) * Moved WifiService to mpos.net * Removed unused fonts to reduce firmware size * Replaced font_montserrat_28 with a compressed version * Improved SD-card error handling WifiService * Now prioritizes connecting to the strongest available networks Credits * @Thomas Farstrike

MicroPythonOS - The Ultimate MicroPython Operating System

Loving this solar-powered #LightingPiggy in a #ZapTV case, streaming sats in El Salvador ⚡️🐽🇸🇻🧡

It’s not every day a new operating system is born, but it happened at @BTC Prague Dev/Hack/Day! Here’s @Thomas Farstrike unveiling #MicroPythonOS to the world 🐍🖥️ Spoiler Alert: His entire presentation was running on it the whole time!! 🤯

An all-new @LightningPiggy is coming. Born into a world where bitcoin, nostr, and vibe coding are the norm. The future is bright, programmable, and powered by sats. Witness the reveal at @BTC Prague‘s 2025’s Dev/Hack/Day. #LightningPiggy #STEMM #BitcoinKids #bitcoin

Some new experimental piggy hardware (ESP32-S3-LCD-2-C) has just arrived but unfortunately, the camera mount has been installed backwards at the factory, making it impossible to connect the OV5640 camera ribbon. Oh Grunt! Back to rolling about in the mud while we get this sorted! ⚡️🐽 #LightningPiggy #STEMM #BitcoinKids #BuildInPublic #bitcoin

New me! ⚡️🐽

Hot on the hoofs of our last major update, v6.1.0 has just landed, bringing 100% feature parity between LNBits and Nostr Wallet Connect (NWC) —empowering users with greater choice and convenience as they start receiving their first zaps and saving on the bitcoin standard! In short, going ‘full Nostr’ means you won’t have to deal with any boar-ing limitations, just smooth P2P (Peer-to-Piggy) connectivity! 🐽 Change log: * Nostr Wallet Connect: Added support for NIP47 payment notifications for instant updates! Now, when a payment zaps in, your wallet balance(s) and updated list of payments will be displayed immediately - no more wallowing around waiting! * Fixed issue #30: When a payment comment is missing, “Null” messages are a thing of the past, because we don’t want our logs looking like a muddy mess! (Thanks @Jurjen de Vries for reporting the bug!) Much of the hard work for this update involved adding support for payment notifications to the Nostrduino open source library. Furthermore, we’d like to thank @Coinos for proactively working with us to enable these features. Enjoy the update! Stay humble, hog sats! Credits * @Thomas Farstrike * Lead photo: LightningPiggy coloured in at the Kids Block, Bitcoin Atlantis 2024. Team LightningPiggy

LightningPiggy

LightningPiggy

Lightning Piggy - An open source Bitcoin piggy bank for kids. Save in satoshis over the Lightning Network.

LightingPiggy is an electronic cash piggy bank for children, that accepts Bitcoin sent over the Lightning Network. It displays payment amounts, messages, and the total satoshis saved. Our vision is to make bitcoin the savings’ standard for every child, while creating an educational platform to inspire future generations, not only to save in bitcoin, but also to learn to code and build in a free and open-source way. Build your own:

LightningPiggy

Build | LightningPiggy

Build your own Lightning Piggy - choose between the E-paper or LCD edition

Chat with our community:

Telegram

LightningPiggy

Community group for the LightningPiggy FOSS project

Join our shadowy super coders:

GitHub

Lightning Piggy

An electronic cash piggy bank for children that accepts bitcoin sent over lightning, while displaying the amount saved in satoshis - Lightning Piggy

Support the project:

Bitcoin Crowdfunding for New Ideas and Humanitarian Causes | Geyser

Geyser helps people launch new Bitcoin project ideas and fund humanitarian causes worldwide, accelerating adoption through transparent crowdfunding.

Follow us on Nostr: https://njump.me/npub1y2qcaseaspuwvjtyk4suswdhgselydc42ttlt0t2kzhnykne7s5swvaffq Follow us on X:

X (formerly Twitter)

LightningPiggy ⚡️🐽 (@LightningPiggy) on X

An electronic cash piggy bank for children that accepts bitcoin sent over lightning, while displaying the amount saved in satoshis.

#LightningPiggy #STEMM #BitcoinKids #FOSS #BuildInPublic #bitcoin

🥁 Drumroll, please! 🥁 We’re thrilled to announce the integration of Nostr Wallet Connect (NWC) into LightningPiggy! Now, you can seamlessly your Lightning Piggybank directly to any NWC-enabled wallet, unlocking a whole new world of funding sources. With effortless setup, smooth transactions, and even more ways to hog sats, saving on a bitcoin standard just got easier. LightningPiggy was the first piggy bank to accept bitcoin over lightning thanks to @LNbits. Now, we’re the first to connect with the fast growing Nostr ecosystem, thanks to @Nostr Wallet Connect ! You might want to build one yourself, in case it catches on!⚡🐽 Our lead developer, Thomas, has been firing on all cylinders. A large part of the effort involved improving Nostrduino, optimising it for low-memory microcontrollers like the ESP32, which powers our project. This involved fixing bugs, improving performance, and adding essential features to meet our needs. For reference, here are 10 related pull requests showcasing these improvements:

GitHub

Pull requests · riccardobl/nostrduino

A nostr-tools inspired library for Arduino (and other) microcontrollers. With NWC support - Pull requests · riccardobl/nostrduino

Additional improvements that come with this v6.0.X release include: - Added NWC URL to the configuration page for easier wallet connection. - Improved help text on the configuration page for better clarity. - Enhanced timezone selection by adding GMT offsets for more precise setup. - Displayed IP address after connecting to an access point as a client. - New functionality for the General Purpose (IO39) button: • Short press refreshes the balance (like the tilt sensor). • Short press skips the wait time during the logo/boot wisdom display. - Optimised Wi-Fi connectivity with a full network scan, automatically selecting the strongest access point. Credits * @Thomas Farstrike

GitHub

ThomasFarstrike - Overview

The future looks bright! ThomasFarstrike has 26 repositories available. Follow their code on GitHub.

* @Jurjen de Vries for sponsoring this update. * Lead photo: A selection of community created cases. Team LightningPiggy

LightningPiggy

LightningPiggy

Lightning Piggy - An open source Bitcoin piggy bank for kids. Save in satoshis over the Lightning Network.

LightingPiggy is an electronic cash piggy bank for children, that accepts Bitcoin sent over the Lightning Network. It displays payment amounts, messages, and the total satoshis saved. Our vision is to make bitcoin the savings’ standard for every child, while creating an educational platform to inspire future generations, not only to save in bitcoin, but also to learn to code and build in a free and open-source way. Build your own:

LightningPiggy

Build | LightningPiggy

Build your own Lightning Piggy - choose between the E-paper or LCD edition

Chat with our community:

Telegram

LightningPiggy

Community group for the LightningPiggy FOSS project

Join our shadowy super coders:

GitHub

Lightning Piggy

An electronic cash piggy bank for children that accepts bitcoin sent over lightning, while displaying the amount saved in satoshis - Lightning Piggy

Support the project:

Bitcoin Crowdfunding for New Ideas and Humanitarian Causes | Geyser

Geyser helps people launch new Bitcoin project ideas and fund humanitarian causes worldwide, accelerating adoption through transparent crowdfunding.

Follow us on Nostr: https://njump.me/npub1y2qcaseaspuwvjtyk4suswdhgselydc42ttlt0t2kzhnykne7s5swvaffq Follow us on X:

X (formerly Twitter)

LightningPiggy ⚡️🐽 (@LightningPiggy) on X

An electronic cash piggy bank for children that accepts bitcoin sent over lightning, while displaying the amount saved in satoshis.

#LightningPiggy #STEMM #BitcoinKids #FOSS #BuildInPublic #bitcoin

Running LightningPiggyOS v5.0.X This major update is fully loaded! Your piggy can now be updated without affecting configuration settings and configured wirelessly via its own hotspot—no more reconfiguring between updates! We’ve also made a hog-load of user experience improvements and fixes to keep things running as smooth as a hairy hog’s back. Version 5.0.6 * Fixed QR encoding of lightning addresses (like oink@demo.lnpiggy.com). A nod towards NWC (Nostr Wallet Connect) since most supporting wallets offer a lightning address Version 5.0.5 * Reduced WiFi connection failure sleep from 8h to 4h * Switched to timeapi.io as worldtimeapi.org is down * Re-enabled web authentication for Configuration Mode Version 5.0.4 * Fixed issue where the “Always Run Webserver” setting was ignored Version 5.0.3 * Now fetching fiat prices from Coingecko instead of Coindesk (due to service outage) * Added additional websocket debugging output Version 5.0.2 * Reduced long press duration for Configuration Mode from 5s to 3s * Improved long press responsiveness during WiFi connection and display rendering * Enabled “Captive Portal” DNS to guide users to the Configuration Mode webpage * Disabled web authentication for Configuration Mode Version 5.0.1 * Added “Restart” button to the configuration webpage * Fixed boot loop issue caused by faulty sleep logic and failed assertions * Reduced WiFi connection timeout from 42s to 30s * If WiFi connection fails, the device now shows an error and sleeps instead of starting Access Point mode Version 5.0.0 * Introduced easy configuration without reflashing * Device can now become a WiFi hotspot for configuration * Configuration Mode triggers when: * No configuration is found * WiFi connection fails * Long press on “IO39” button Oinkward! Credits * @Thomas Farstrike with thanks to @DrShift for the awesome web configuration page. * Lead photo: “LightingPiggy” drawn by Kiralynn age 10 at Bitcoin 2024 in Nashville Team LightningPiggy

LightningPiggy

LightningPiggy

Lightning Piggy - An open source Bitcoin piggy bank for kids. Save in satoshis over the Lightning Network.

LightingPiggy is an electronic cash piggy bank for children, that accepts Bitcoin sent over the Lightning Network. It displays payment amounts, messages, and the total satoshis saved. Our vision is to make bitcoin the savings’ standard for every child, while creating an educational platform to inspire future generations, not only to save in bitcoin, but also to learn to code and build in a free and open-source way. Build your own:

LightningPiggy

Build | LightningPiggy

Build your own Lightning Piggy - choose between the E-paper or LCD edition

Chat with our community:

Telegram

LightningPiggy

Community group for the LightningPiggy FOSS project

Join our shadowy super coders:

GitHub

Lightning Piggy

An electronic cash piggy bank for children that accepts bitcoin sent over lightning, while displaying the amount saved in satoshis - Lightning Piggy

Support the project:

Bitcoin Crowdfunding for New Ideas and Humanitarian Causes | Geyser

Geyser helps people launch new Bitcoin project ideas and fund humanitarian causes worldwide, accelerating adoption through transparent crowdfunding.

Follow us on Nostr: https://njump.me/npub1y2qcaseaspuwvjtyk4suswdhgselydc42ttlt0t2kzhnykne7s5swvaffq Follow us on X:

X (formerly Twitter)

LightningPiggy ⚡️🐽 (@LightningPiggy) on X

An electronic cash piggy bank for children that accepts bitcoin sent over lightning, while displaying the amount saved in satoshis.

#LightningPiggy #STEMM #BitcoinKids #FOSS #BuildInPublic #bitcoin

A new ⚡️🐽 is born. Imagine the delight every time a zap arrives! Bitcoin kids are the best!! @Jace

We had an amazing time at @BTCPrague’s Kids’ Corner, where we built piggies and created some unique characters. The children were incredibly creative and worked well together. Check out their proof-of-work (shared with permissions). #LightningPiggy #STEMM #BitcoinKids #bitcoin

Pig’s don’t fly? Well this little piggy has just landed in Prague 🎶 Being your kids to our design and build challenges at @BTCPrague this Friday and Saturday ⚡️🐽

Join us Today at 3 PM for a LightningPiggy Workshop @BitcoinArnhem! The piggybank for your kids. The first 10 participants will receive a special Nostr surprise. Don’t miss out—just head down to the basement to join the fun! ⚡️🐽

Did you know you can setup recurring lightning payments to your LightningPiggy using @Alby ZapPlanner? Pocket money has never been so sound and easy.

ZapPlanner

Schedule lightning payments to a lightning address using NWC

#LightningPiggy #STEMM #BitcoinKids #bitcoin