akoutmos
@hugobarauna and I (Alex Koutmos) have been hard at work on writing a book on Nerves that takes you from simply blinking LEDs to building LiveView powered kiosks (and everything in between).
You’ll be building projects like:
- A Morse code translator
- A reaction time tester
- An Etch A Sketch that renders in Livebook using knobs
- Upgrading the Etch A Sketch to use a joy stick
- Rending CPU temperature from the Raspberry Pi in LiveBook using VegaLite (you’ll also write a simple stress test to get the CPU hot
) - A simple weather report/clock using a 20x04 LCD display
- Displaying of accelerometer data using OLED displays
- Interacting with accelerometer data using a LiveView kiosk
By the end of the book, you will have built a wide a array of projects and should be more than comfortable tackling some of your own Nerves projects!
Part 1: Rapid Prototyping Nerves Using Livebook
- Getting Started With Livebook
- Build a Morse Code Translator
- Build a Traffic Light Simulator
- Build a Reaction Time Game
- Building the Etch A Sketch Circuit
- Programming the Etch A Sketch
Part 2: Building Custom Nerves Firmwares
- Build a Custom Nerves Firmware
- Optimizing Your WorkflowC
- Interfacing With I²C Hardware
- Creating a Nerves Kiosk
Appendices
- Basics of Electricity
- Selecting Resistors
- Using a Breadboard
Check out the book landing page for more details and to see how you can buy the book at 38% percent off while we’re in beta:
https://www.programmingnerves.dev/
Also our promo video where we show off a few of the projects that you will build:
Happy hacking!
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akoutmos
I also forgot to add that anyone attending the ElixirConf Nerves training in Sept also gets this book for free!!
akoutmos
Howdy howdy everyone! Just wanted to let everyone know that release 0.3.0 has now been published (anyone who purchased the book should have already been emailed the update)
!
This release includes Chapter 5 which goes over the hardware side of building a Nerves powered Etch A Sketch in Livebook. We cover the different hardware communication protocols that the Raspberry Pi supports (UART, I2C and SPI), which one we’ll use for the project, and the Nerves libraries that enable this functionality.
Hugo and I are really excited about how this chapter came together and we know you’ll enjoy building this project:
Chapter 6 is almost done as well. In this chapter you’ll be putting together the software side of your Etch A Sketch project and you’ll be able to see the rendered canvas in Livebook:
akoutmos
Hey Tomaz,
I don’t often check my social media DMs as they are always bombarded with spam…but glad you posted here!
Hugo and I are currently working on the 0.3.0 release, and with that release Part 1 of the book should be wrapped up. We’ll be sure to post here once that release is cut, but you should also automatically receive that release via ConvertKit. Hope that helps!
tomazbracic
Hi everyone,
I tried on X and Bluesky, but I can’t seem to reach the authors. Couldn’t find any link on the page itself.
Some time ago (Dec 2025), this book “Programming Nerves” came out. 2 versions so far (0.0.1 and 0.2.0), if not mistaken? But then, no new versions. In ToC it says Part1. I would assume more is to come? Or not?
Is there any new content coming out or not? Does anybody know this?
Appreciate the answers.
Regards.
imposter_syndrome
The non-generic ones
akoutmos
Sorry to hear that :/. What parts specifically are hard to get in the Philippines?
imposter_syndrome
Might be hard to get those components here in the Philippines
akoutmos
Apologies if my previous comment was unclear. I meant anything with higher specs than the Pi Zero 2 W, including the Pi Zero 2 W. So I would suggest using one of the following to complete the projects within the book (also depending on what you plan on doing with the Pi long term):
Given that the Livebook distribution of Nerves will consume about 100MB of memory at idle, you have about 400MB of memory left if you go with the cheapest option in the list (that being the Pi Zero 2 W which has 512MB of memory).
arcanemachine
To be clear, are you saying the Pi Zero 2 W is not sufficient?
I am still not 100% sure which Pi I would need. (I would like to keep total spend as low as possible.) Can you add this information to the book? Minimum viable Pi, recommended Pi, etc. Thanks!
lawik
I really like working with the Pi 4 since it is plenty powerful, has everything across USB-C. Not as tiny as the Zero 2W though.