Pi 5 bar display under the BenQ — “Geek but Warm” desk refresh

Finally finished a desk refresh with a simple rule: look like a nerd, feel like a home — Geek but Warm.

The eye-catcher is the wide bar LCD sitting on the wooden riser under my main monitor, driven by a Raspberry Pi 5. It’s my always-on “mission control”: clock/weather, Notion tasks + calendar, biometrics, and calorie/PFC balance — each with its own tab when I need detail.

The workflow tweak I’m happiest about: a countdown tied to each task’s estimated time (from Notion), plus a separate Pomodoro that isn’t chained to those estimates — pick a task, start the budget timer, optionally sprint with Pomodoro.

Tiny koala in the corner is Jarvis — an ambient one-liner assistant (more on that in another sub). Solo freelancer life got a lot less “quiet room, loud brain.”

Happy to share a fuller gear list in the comments if anyone’s building something similar.