Clear-shell consoles and handhelds are nothing new; Tom's Hardware points to the Game Boy Color in Atomic Purple and the N64 Funtastic series. The Arduview goes one step further: you can see through the screen as well. According to Video Games Chronicle, the tiny console, which claims to be the first ever fully transparent games console, has already met its Kickstarter goal.
A quick note on sourcing: the Kickstarter campaign page isn't one of the sources we could check directly, so everything below is credited to the two outlets that reported it, VGC and Tom's Hardware.
A screen that looks like glass
VGC describes the Arduview as roughly the size of a credit card. When the device is off, VGC says, the screen looks like glass. When it's on, the lit pixels glow cyan and the rest of the screen stays clear. That means you can hold it up and still see the game from behind, and VGC adds that the glow makes it playable in the dark.
Tom's Hardware, which covered the project in September, says the transparency goes beyond the screen: the shell, the circuit board and the OLED display are all see-through. VGC says it has been using an Arduview for around a month, with a full report to follow, and that it can confirm the screen works as shown on the Kickstarter page.
A student project built on Arduboy
The handheld was created by Louis Huang, whom VGC describes as a student at Babson College in Massachusetts. VGC quotes him as believing that "the inside of a device is the most interesting part of it, so you should be able to see it".
Huang told Tom's Hardware that he had always loved transparent consoles and clear-shell mods, but was disappointed that the transparency always stopped at the frame. "So we pushed it further with a transparent OLED screen, board, and case," he wrote.
Under the glass, the Arduview is built on the open-source Arduboy platform, and VGC says it uses the open-source Arduino project for its hardware and software. VGC quotes Huang as saying he chose it "so it could be opened, flashed and tinkered with, not sealed shut".
This is not a powerhouse. Tom's Hardware says the handheld is for "playing hundreds of community-made 8-bit games on the ATmega32u4 microcontroller with its meager resources (2.5KB RAM, 32KB storage)". Huang highlighted to Tom's Hardware that it weighs 50g, connects to a computer and charges over USB-C, and has no app store and no Wi-Fi. VGC says it comes with 400 games built in, and that games made by the Arduboy community can also be added.
What it costs
VGC reports that the campaign had already passed its goal, with 38 days to go at the time of writing. It lists three tiered early-bird pledges at HK$573 (around US$75), HK$692 (around US$89) and HK$770 (around US$99), against the HK$1,159 (around US$147) it will cost at launch.
Those numbers are higher than the ones Tom's Hardware saw in September, before the Kickstarter launched. Back then, it said a $5 reservation through the Arduview early access programme secured a $49 "founder price", and that the device would apparently cost $100 at retail, a September figure. Those were different offers at a different stage, and neither outlet explains the change, so if you're thinking of backing it, check the current tiers on the campaign page itself.
On timing, Tom's Hardware wrote in September, before the campaign launched, that "the Kickstarter backers won’t get their hardware until 2027". VGC doesn't give a shipping date.
As with any crowdfunded hardware, a funded campaign isn't a shipped product, and VGC's full report should say more about how the Arduview actually plays.
Riley's take: A console you can see straight through is a gloriously silly idea, and I mean that as a compliment. The 2.5KB of RAM tells you exactly what this is: a tiny, tinker-friendly toy, not a rival to the big handhelds. That's fine. The best part is Huang's pitch that the inside of a device should be on display, and for once the screen isn't the exception.
Reporting notes