Smartphones are terrible for focus. You sit down to work, set a timer on your phone, and immediately get distracted by three notifications. That is why developers are increasingly turning to dedicated, offline hardware. GitHub user einoko just dropped a brilliant solution for the ESP32-S3 microcontroller called Tomato32, and it completely fixes the distraction problem.
It is a sleek, low-profile digital Pomodoro timer built around a Waveshare LCD touchscreen. The entire project is completely open-source, meaning anyone with a soldering iron and a little patience can build their own dedicated focus gadget right now.
The Hardware Behind Tomato32
The build relies on the ESP32-S3 chip to handle the processing and display logic. Users get a highly customizable interface with three distinct timer profiles. You can manually adjust the duration of your focus time, dial in the length of short and long breaks, and even set the exact number of work sessions required before a long break kicks in.
It also supports custom backgrounds. The creator, known as u/einokooo on the ESP32 subreddit, made all the schematics, code, and setup instructions freely available on GitHub. You can read the full breakdown of the hardware requirements, according to XDA Developers.
A Touchscreen Homage to Francesco Cirillo
This little DIY build actually carries some fun historical weight. The Pomodoro Technique traditionally relies on 25 minutes of intense work followed by a 5-minute rest. The method was created by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s.
He originally used a mechanical kitchen timer shaped like a tomato—”pomodoro” in Italian—to track his intervals. Tomato32 is just a modern, touchscreen homage to that original plastic tomato. By pulling the timer off your computer screen and putting it back into the physical world, the project taps into a growing movement of makers building single-purpose offline desk gadgets to defeat digital fatigue.