For the new year, I'm posting monthly product updates. And for this first "state of the mixtape" post let me bring you all up to speed:

What is a Mixfinity Tape?

Mixfinity is a stand-alone physical-digital mixtape designed for intentional listening and the sharing of spoken word audio content like podcasts and YouTube audio. Inspired by earlier physical formats like the cassette tape and compact disc, Mixfinity reimagines audio for 2026 using modern technologies such as Bluetooth and E-ink displays.

2025 Year-end Recap

• September 2025: Concept first pitched to Founders, Inc. Blueprint accelerator
• October–November 2025: Participated in Blueprint hardware accelerator; initial CAD 3D prints and first MXT-01-A circuit board design. First five circuit boards ordered November 20th.
• December 2025: Circuit boards arrived from JLC PCB. Firmware board bring-up for: e-ink displays, buttons, audio codec, basic application architecture

And now on to 2026.

Las Vegas – CES 2026

For the first week of January, I traveled to Las Vegas for the 2026 Consumer Electronics Show.

Photos from the week can be found on the press page.

Hardware Updates

After receiving the prototype circuit boards back from the factory in mid-December, I spent most of the holiday break writing firmware. I had not particularly touched the 3D-printed housing since first designing the enclosure in October, and while I knew the button cut-outs were ready to go and could be aligned correctly to the circuit board button switches, I still didn't have any actual plastic buttons fabbed (!).

And so, at the last minute, I headed to the makerspace around 8pm on Saturday night ahead of the 5am flight to Las Vegas for CES on Sunday, January 4th. I brought my suitcases with me to the makerspace to be able to head direct to JFK airport following the 3D prints.

I used tiny Panasonic EVQ-P7A01P right-angle switches for the circuit board which have very small 1.7mm x 1.1mm contact pads for the buttons (no bigger than a grain of rice). After a few initial test prints, my 3D-printed buttons simply were not contacting the switches reliably. I made the call around 3am to re-book my flight to 11:30am to give me more time.

I kept iterating on the button geometry, with each test print performing a little better and more snugly, until I simply ran out of time again. I made the call around 9:30am to start one final print with one final button geometry for all ten buttons that I needed for the two demo units. And though I so wanted to test the buttons before leaving NYC, I knew it was pointless since I wouldn't have time to make any design changes and then do another print anyway. Printing the buttons takes like thirty minutes. So I packed everything up into my suitcases and headed to JFK with the freshly printed buttons and without testing for fit.

I didn’t know if the buttons would work until I was sitting on the carpet of my hotel room in Las Vegas, six hours and 2,200 miles from the makerspace 3D printers. As it happened, I checked into the room at Luxor Hotel & Casino (the big pyramid on the south end of the strip) and finally got to assemble everything. The time-lapse video is below and they all worked perfectly much to my relief.

Firmware Updates

Following CES, I shifted focus to firmware and into turning the prototype from "all the hardware signals work" into something with actual user experience (UX) design that feels like a real product.

Notable features added this month:

• Built the first full user interface using LVGL, powering both the front and back E-ink displays
• Added front and back screensavers, track listings, and a proper “Now Playing” view
• Introduced USB "Disk Mode": plug a Mixfinity tape into a Mac or PC and it appears like a USB drive for drag-and-drop audio
• Added support for JPEG and PNG images for Now Playing art and screensavers
• Implemented a mixtape.json catalog file to control track order and metadata

Month Ahead

For February, I'm focusing on polishing the firmware and industrial design ahead of attending SXSW in Austin, Texas, next month.

For the mechanical design, I'll be updating the housing (which is now basically an upper and lower half that fasten together) to include a carrier tray for the circuit board and displays. The enclosure currently relies on compressing the E-ink displays and circuit board stack-up into place, and this is far from ideal. I also intend to add reliefs to the exterior surface for metalized product and album labels (e.g. "Patrick's Mixtape Vol. #1" labeling as well as the Mixfinity branding). Finally, I plan to add the hinged "battery door" to allow listeners to swap the battery. I had ordered nickel battery contacts from Keystone when I was yet in California but these went missing when I re-located back to NYC, so I'll have to order more.

The firmware has been working well. I hope to spend February building out functionality on our website to on-board new musicians and podcasters and authors at least for the sake of being able to demonstrate uploading audio files and of being able to program them onto Mixfinity tapes "just in time". And for beta testers.

Lastly, I expect to order another lot of circuit boards for demonstration and potentially early beta testers. The factory will be shut down February 16-19 for Spring Festival in China so I hope to place my order ahead of that window.

As always, feel free to write me at patrick@mixfinity.com with any requests or questions.