Grayline.

Somewhere far away is playing.

The gray line, right now — … UTC · redrawn every minute, just like the radio

What it is

Grayline is an internet clock radio. Turn it on and a station somewhere in the world starts playing — a jazz café in Osaka, a call-in show in Lagos, morning news in Reykjavík. The screen shows a world map with the station's location, whether it's day or night there, and the weather outside the studio. Roll the dice for another place, or tap the map to aim.

Built on an ESP32-S3 touch display, streaming through radio.garden. It's a radio, not an app: no accounts, no ads, no browsing, no feed.

The name

The gray line is the band of twilight between day and night. Shortwave listeners have chased it for a century: along that line, radio signals travel impossibly far, and distant stations rise out of the static for a few golden minutes at dawn and dusk.

Grayline draws that line, live, across its map — the same line moving across the map above right now.

The idea

It recreates the feel of a 1960s transistor radio: turn the knob and somewhere far away is playing. The device is connected to the internet but doesn't feel like it. The screen isn't an interface to a service — it's a window into the place you're hearing.

Every feature is judged against that idea: quiet, glanceable, radio-first.

What it does

World-random tuningOne tap, a new station from anywhere on Earth — or filter to a country.
Point & listenTap anywhere on the map and hear a station near that spot.
The gray lineLive day/night terminator in three twilight bands, recomputed each minute.
Local weatherCurrent conditions outside the station's studio, on the now-playing line.
Favorites & historySave up to 25 stations; replay the last 10 you wandered through.
SearchBy country with region drill-down, or by name with an on-screen keyboard.
Clock radio, fullyAlarm with station or offline fallback, sleep timer, auto-dim schedule.
Station lockFreeze a station across dropouts and reboots — a real radio's tuning dial.
Yours to setMap styles, ocean colors, marker colors, EQ — all on-device, no recompile.
Updates over the airPull-based firmware updates, only when you ask, verified before install.

The hardware

PHOTO COMING SOON

Desktop set — 2.8″

Freenove ESP32-S3 touch display, ES8311 codec, SD card for offline alarm audio and settings backup. The primary build.

Case: CYD Desk Buddy by annaglyph

PHOTO COMING SOON

Big-map set — 4.3″

Sunton 800×480 IPS panel, MAX98357A speaker amp. The map you can read from across the room.

A 1960s-style portable is next — the battery groundwork is already in.