Runs on hardware you already own
Piazza HQ turns a Raspberry Pi or a spare Windows PC into an always-on, beautifully animated wall display for your schedule, chores, and photos — or run it headless on a NAS or home server you already have, managed entirely from your phone. Runs entirely on hardware you own; nobody else's servers hold your data.
No monthly fee. No ads. Keeps working even if your internet drops.
No install, no signup
Open a real, private copy of Piazza HQ in your browser for a few minutes — rearrange widgets, switch themes, poke around every tab. It resets for the next person when you're done.
21 themes, and counting
Fireworks on the 4th, snow at Christmas, a twilight sky for the aviation theme — each one is animated, not just a color swap, with a size and density you control.
Switch anytime — no reinstall, no reboot.
Setup
No cloud account to configure, no monthly hosting to manage — pick what you're installing it on, the whole thing runs there.
Any Raspberry Pi 4 or later works. Pair it with any HDMI screen or a cheap wall-mounted monitor.
One installer script sets up everything — the app, the display, and automatic updates.
Everyone manages events, chores, and photos from their phone's browser — no app required.
One .exe, no admin rights needed — it installs to your own user folder, not Program Files.
One wizard checkbox: a normal windowed app for managing things, or full-screen kiosk mode that starts automatically at sign-in.
Same as the Pi from here — everyone manages events, chores, and photos from their phone's browser.
One docker-compose.yml — drops in alongside whatever else you already run on that NAS, mini PC, or home server.
docker compose up -dOne command. No separate install script, no OS packages to manage — Docker Engine is the only prerequisite.
No screen needed — manage everything from your phone or laptop browser. Add a real display anytime later by just pointing one at it.
More than one screen
Every layout you build has a shareable link. Scan a QR code on a second screen — an old iPad, a Fire Stick or Chromecast's browser, a spare monitor on a cheap streaming box — and it shows your calendar too. No second Pi to buy, no separate install.
If it can open a web page, it can be a display — tablet, streaming stick, old laptop propped in the kitchen.
Show the exact same wall display, or build a second layout just for that screen — a kids' room version, a kitchen-only view.
On the same Wi-Fi, it just works. On a different network — a tablet you move between rooms — add Tailscale and it keeps working.
Two ways to edit
Move a widget, resize it, swap in a new one — do it from your phone's browser across the room, or by walking up and touching the actual display. Same layout either way, saved instantly.
No app needed
Drag widgets around, resize them, swap themes — right from Safari or Chrome on your phone. Nothing to download, nothing to update separately.
✏️ Live Editing
Tap the display, tap the pencil icon that appears, and you're editing live — drag widgets, resize them, add new ones, right on the wall. No phone required, nothing to log into.
The story
I started out on MagicMirror — the open-source smart mirror project a lot of Pi hobbyists know well. It's a solid foundation, but living with it meant near-constant babysitting: third-party add-ons that broke with every update, and a config file that increasingly felt like its own small programming language just to nudge a widget a few pixels.
After one too many evenings debugging someone else's abandoned module, I built my own version instead — one where changing a layout means dragging a widget on a screen, not hand-editing JSON and hoping.
Piazza HQ is that project, grown into something worth sharing.
Get Started
Set it up on your own Raspberry Pi and keep it running for as long as you want. No recurring payment, no time limit.
Piazza HQ
We'll only use this email for setup help — no spam. Keys that go unused for 7 days, or accounts inactive for 30 days, are automatically removed.
How it's funded
There's no catch. Piazza HQ is one person's nights-and-weekends project, and it's free on purpose — no subscription, no account tiers, no ads, and no "Pro" version waiting in the wings to charge you later.
It runs on donations from people who find it useful. If it earns a spot on your wall and you want to chip in, there's a link in the app under Settings → Support the Project — or right here. Completely optional, and it doesn't unlock anything. It just covers the time and the coffee that keep this going.