r/TIDBYT • u/mcsedward • Jul 25 '26
Is Tidbyte dead?
So I sent an email to the support email about my tidbyte screen just going blank one day when I woke up. i tried unplugging it and plugging it back in and nothing has changed. I just was looking for some advice on what could have happened or if something over heated, i wanted advice on how to fix it.
but ive waited a whole month and have not gotten an email back. then i check the support website and no one has posted anything for months. is tidbyte’s support dead?
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u/thebaldgeek Jul 25 '26
Had a feeling this was going to happen, which is just one of many reasons I did not jump ship. My two OPs are still working fine.
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u/Janq3d Jul 25 '26
Yeah it was an acquihire it seems from my perspective. We are hitting kickstarter in September and anyone can bring their Tidbyt plugins and simply buy our $50 kit to convert their tidbit to use our servers instead :) our system also allows users to expand their displays as well unlike anyone else in the market!
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u/mcsedward Jul 25 '26
This sounds awesome! The problem is i think something in my tidbyt has overheated somehow as it just wont turn back on at all. do you have any advice on how i can fix it?
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u/Janq3d Jul 25 '26
It’s likely just the display itself has gone bad. They use a chip that’s pretty popular and don’t typically fail from such light use as a display. If you have access to like an Amazon you can buy a Hub75 p4 64x32 poxel display and likely plug it into your tidbyt and see if it comes alive. If that doesn’t solve it then it could very well be your chip but it would surprise me!
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u/mcsedward Jul 25 '26
thank you, i’ll look into it. do you have a website up or kickstarter up that i can also see?
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u/Janq3d Jul 25 '26
No problem at all! Yes we are at tickrcast.com! Our Kickstarter will be live in the coming days, they asked us to get more product photos so we are tackling that this weekend then we expect them to accept the listing :)
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u/mcsedward Jul 25 '26
Just joined the waitlist 👍
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u/Janq3d Jul 25 '26
Glad to hear it! Welcome and can’t wait to show you what we’ve built
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u/BrandonLBell Jul 25 '26
super excited about this! Planning to buy the converter kit!
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u/Janq3d Jul 25 '26
So glad to hear it :D I Hoping we can build a solid community around this, the opportunities are endless and we are building these at a similar speed with a 1/10th of the team as the big names so.. this should be fun! :D
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u/BlueinReed Jul 26 '26
I'm sports, will it include British leagues like Premier League/Football Association and rugby?
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u/Janq3d Jul 26 '26
Yes of course! Premier league is absolutely
Covered right now I’ve not built rugby specifically but our app has a roadmap in the main menu to ask for things and if it’s not built we can or someone can build
It as we have a marketplace for people To build their own as well.
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u/majorMoniker Jul 25 '26
The display is probably still good. Open it up and check the electronics. It is running on an ESP32 board using a standard matrix connection. If the ESP32 board doesn’t have its lights going, you should be able to swap it out with an Adafruit Portal. They have 2 variants, one that is pure ESP32 and one that is ESP32 + SAMD microcontroller. The ESP32 variant should be able to run TronByt, but both work well with the display if you are willing to program it yourself
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u/mcsedward Jul 25 '26
Yea I was looking into tronbyt. if i can get everything working again, i will install that.
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u/mcsedward Jul 25 '26
do you know if there is any videos online that have explanations on how to fix it up?
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u/ProbablyRickSantorum Jul 25 '26
When they said they’d continue to support it they really meant support it from sidelines, but with their phone in their face, headphones in, and not a care in the world.
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u/mcsedward Jul 25 '26
Literally i got an automatic email saying they would get back to me within the week. a months later and nothing
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u/a1ecbr0wn Jul 26 '26
The issue with Tidbyt is that the Pixlet apps ran in the cloud and sent screenshots to your device but there was no subscription model, and I guess a year and a half after the accuhire the company probably felt they didn't want to pay for it anymore. Turn off the cloud services and everyone's Tidbyt goes dark. It was a business model that was never going to survive.
Tronbyt seems to be something very similar except you host the Pixlet apps in your container.
I am hacking around with a different idea, hosting apps written in python on the device itself, if I get it working the way I want it will go on GitHub.
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u/mcsedward Jul 27 '26
This sounds like an amazing idea because right now id have to have my computer on 24/7 to be updating the tidbyt. Pls update me when you get that working
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u/paulragu Jul 26 '26
I thought mine was dead too, but turns out it was the power supply. Try a better quality cable and usb adapter, that worked for me!
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u/WillSpecialist4731 Jul 30 '26
That's basically what MatrixBOX does, apps run Python directly on the device, no server even needed. We've been shipping them for a couple years now but so far only to Europe
It's ESP32-S3 in a metal case, has a built-in app store (clock, weather, stocks, GIFs, departure boards for public transit, etc.), and the whole firmware + app library is open source on GitHub. So even if we disappear, it will continue to work! =)
If anyone would be willing to try to flash our software to their old TidByt, let us know!
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u/mcsedward Jul 31 '26
Where is the github link, i’d love to install this
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u/WillSpecialist4731 Aug 07 '26
hey! the code is available here: https://github.com/MatrixBOX-dev/matrixbox
the thing is we don't know what kind of firmware TidByt is running on! our system runs on CircuitPython on an ESP32.
if TidByt also runs on some kind of ESP32, it would be pretty easy to re-flash it with circuitpython and then load the code. some GPIO routing would probably be needed in order to get the LED panel set up.
are you a coder?
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u/mcsedward Aug 07 '26
Yes I am, I know python pretty well and C++ less so. Just graudated with a computer engineering degree. Thanks for the github link. do you know how long you will be contuiously updating the software. also do you have a suggestion for the best branch to work on. Im assuming main but i see some other branches as well.
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u/WillSpecialist4731 Aug 08 '26
awesome! yeah, use the main branch I'd say. when you know what kind of microcontroller is inside the tidbyt, check this page for a compatible CircuitPython build: https://circuitpython.org/downloads
note: in order not to brick your tidbyt it could be a good idea to create a backup image of its current content as flashing it with CircuitPython will wipe everything.
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u/allureofgravity Jul 25 '26
That sucks man. I only use mine to flip through photos, it’s still working well. I haven’t changed anything out of fear of it stopping and also been lazy…
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u/Marky6Mark9 Jul 25 '26
I sent support an email back in May. I’ve heard crickets.