[m4r71n]

This looks great! I've considered building a simple device with an LED matrix that looks similar to this, but could never figure out what gives the LEDs the muted look. All of the devices mentioned here (Tidbyt Gen2, Lamarca, Ulanzi, even the busy.bar) have it. Is the back-pannel just an LED matrix with a custom acrylic in front of it? How do they ensure the light from individual LEDs doesn't bleed into its neighbor?

[blutack]

I wouldn't swear to it but from mine it looks like there's a grid of light guides between the led PCB and the front screen to prevent any cross bleed. The front screen is translucent but not transparent (think heavy tinted window) acrylic which gives it the muted look.

It's pretty good hardware wise, it would be hard to knock up DIY for $50 even just in BOM.

Edit: teardown in German https://youtu.be/-Dn3A5V8ZPo @ 04:30

[egeozcan]

> custom acrylic

While I'm not an expert, my own experimentation suggests this is correct