ESP32-Based TTGO Module Revisited with ESPHOME

Described as the , back in March 2021 I received two of these ESP32-based modules, so as you can imagine, I’ve had yet another learning experience – le’s take a look at these lovely modules complete with colour display.

So I’ve put together a very short video and as just about everything therein was at the time, new to me, be prepared…

While putting together my own preliminary material, I happened to stumble upon this guy (no association) who’s done some interesting stuff with these displays – his board has a battery – mine arrived complete with display, ESP32 and USB-C interface as well as a lead for a battery but no actual battery. He’s done a weather station and some other projects using these boards, hopefully I’ll do something interesting soon – after getting over the novelty, I originally flashed Tasmota on one of them as that’s an environment I’m familiar with – assuming Tasmota would handle the display which, it seemed it would. In the ESP32 PLATINUM build 9.3.1.1 (DEV bin available) when setting up SPI, there are options for ST7789 CS and ST7789 DC

I did notice as I was wandering around the web, another fun project – a calculator on a TTGO. Not sure how practical it is – but it caught my eye, as someone raised on Casio calculators.

Here’s the short video I made in March, warts and all… ignore the colour balance – my hands aren’t really that colour 🙂

Note that as well as the , Banggood also have a standalone and I’m expecting that to work with Tasmota too (most likely with an ESP32 but I have been pushing at Tasmota to continue support for displays on the ESP8266 with encouraging results).

At the time I wrote the original quick intro, I was a bit short of available power on my desktop but now thanks to my new Bakeey power supply / charger and a timely comment from reader Don, I re-examined the buttons – the side one is clearly reset, the bottom two can be general purpose. The demo includes a WiFi scan and report as well as system voltage readout – and quite possibly a lot more but of course, that’s just the demo. See photos below.. Of course, being based around an ESP32, the boad has full Bluetooth capability as well as WiFi.

As of September 21, 2021, I NOW have a basic display with temperature (coming in via MQTT from my IOT setup) running using ESPHOME – and much as I hate to say it, ESPHOME’s display handling seems WAY better than Tasmota – and this display is already looking lovely – AND there are a indeed a couple of buttons on the top – GPIO0 (not ideal but it’ll do) and GPIO35. A TAD more learning to do and I can have the SET temperature up there with control using the buttons.

In the photo above I have the remote temperature and humidity of our living room on the display – but at the time of this update, I also have a BME280 attached – here’s the view from the ESPHOME web server for the TTGO which means I have available temperature, humitiy, pressure and approximate altitude. I just have to get to grips with getting some of that information on the local screen – might need a little re-arrangement – after all, do I REALLY need to know what year it is? Maybe:

TUE
SEP 9

That would clear up some room. Ok, less writing, more action.

More soon. See MY ESPHOME ADVENTURE blog entry.