Arduboy Nano is a (barely) playable game console less than an inch tall

The maker of the Arduboy line of handheld retro game systems has been producing pocket-sized gaming hardware for years. But the new Arduboy Nano goes beyond pocket-sized. It’s small enough to hang from a keychain.

In fact, it’s so small that it’s probably extraordinarily uncomfortable to use for actually gaming. But it’s a fully functional device that can play games.

Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), it’s not actually available for purchase… but developer Kevin Bates says that could change if there’s enough interest.

The Arduboy Nano measures less than an inch tall, has a 0.49 inch, 64 x 32 pixel OLED display, and it’s powered by the same ATmega 32u4 microcontroller used for the full-sized (3.3″ x 2.1″ x 0.2″) model.

With a tiny screen, a miniscule D-pad, and two tiny buttons, I can’t imagine most folks will actually want to game for very long on this little thing… and they couldn’t even if they wanted to. It’s 25 mAh battery only provides a little over an hour of run time.

There’s also a 15mm piezoelectric speaker that’s said to be rather quiet due to its size.