M5Cyber News — a tiny standalone news reader

## The idea

A single-purpose device that does one thing well: delivers the news when you ask for it, then gets out of the way.

## How it works

On boot, the device shows a pixel-art splash screen with a startup jingle, then connects to WiFi via a captive portal. Once online it syncs the time via NTP and auto-detects your timezone by IP.

The home screen is a full-screen clock. Press Button A to open the feed menu, pick a source, and the device fetches and displays live headlines.

Headlines are word-wrapped across the 240x135 display with a scrollbar. Press A to advance through articles, B to scroll long titles. After 30 seconds idle it returns to the clock automatically.

## Features

• 4 international feeds: BBC News, The Guardian, NPR, Sky News
• NTP clock as home screen with auto-detected timezone
• Pixel-art "NEWS!" boot animation with startup jingle
• Shutdown jingle + BYE BYE screen on power off
• Persistent storage: timezone and last-used feed survive power cycles
• Battery saver: dims after 12s, sleeps after 20s
• WiFiManager captive portal — no hardcoded WiFi credentials
• Single.ino file, MIT licensed

## Technical notes

RSS feeds are parsed with indexOf() — no XML library dependency. Rendering uses an off-screen M5Canvas sprite pushed in a single call to avoid flicker. Settings are stored in NVS via the Preferences library.

Reuters and AP were considered but both discontinued public RSS feeds — Sky News fills the same global wire role with a stable working feed.

## Source code

Full source and flashable.bin on GitHub:

https://github.com/LeandroSummo/M5CyberNews-World

There is also an Italian edition (M5CyberNews) with ANSA, Corriere della Sera, Repubblica, Il Sole 24 Ore, TGcom24, La Stampa and Il Fatto Quotidiano.