Making an E-paper Dashboard with ESPHome

Using Home Assistant and ESPHome to make a custom e-paper (e-ink) dashboard. The hardware is pretty trivial... the code is where all the magic happens. This can serve as a demo of using the Waveshare E-paper displays, displaying weather or other sensor data from Home Assistant, using the graph component, finding and mapping custom MDI icons, drawing boxes, formatting dates/numbers/text, and general display setup in ESPHome.

Hardware used was a Adafruit Feather V1 ESP32 and a Waveshare 7.5" epaper screen.

Weather icons are from Google MDI, and here's where I found the codes for any custom icons you want to include in the code:

=== Timestamps ===
00:00 Introduction
04:11 Hardware
08:18 Assembly Interlude
10:45 Set up Weather Forecasts
14:40 ESPHome YAML Highlights
21:10 Conclusion

[kaimcbride]

This has been on my TODO list for a while and your detailed video has pushed me over the edge. Ordering stuff right now. Thanks for the information!

[hunordori]

Thank you, I grabbed your refresh button. I have the same display in my office to show if I am on a meeting or off, WFH, etc. The refresh is pretty annoying, but works.

[TheCreat]

Since the whole thing is relatively hefty already with a 7.5" display, I would just add a 18650 as a semi-permanent power source. It can probably run that thing for a year or something, possibly longer if power management is setup correctly on the ESP32. While probably not necessary, but the weight of the cell would also make it harder to knock over (assuming battery is placed sensibly at the bottom).

[rolasiohfbjydbj]

Good to hear from you😮 i2c home wtf...

[lawrencemanning]

The screen I made for my hallway only updates every hour, and the board sleeps when not doing anything, giving a battery life off a little Lipo of about 3 months. It therefore doesn’t need USB power normally. I think these screens are much better with infrequent refreshes, which lends itself to the ESP going to sleep. The downside is the info can’t update more then once an hour, but that’s adequate for weather forecasts, temperatures around the house, and calendar summaries, which is what I use mine for.

Lots of different approaches.

[zaca]

I would definitely buy something like this.
It would be great to choose skins like Google Calendar, To do lists, upcoming meetings...

[pcbwayluz]

Very nicely done, and good delivery. Wondering if any custom PCBs would be needed from us? Hope to reach out soon:D

[pjohnson]

very nice!

I was also inspired by that project. But I applied a Pi Zero W to my project instead of an esp32. My variation allowed me to pull data from NOAA APIs. They are great....you can even get tide and water temp data if you are on a coastline!

[MauroTamm]

What if you swapped the colours, so the refresh is less noticeable?
White text on black.

[jaymzx]

Hi, fun project. I just wanted to mention if anyone is using the Waveshare 'Universal e-paper driver board' ESP32 board with the screen interface built in, the pin assignments are the following:

Display power = GPIO4
SPI CLK = GPIO13
SPI MOSI = GPIO14
Screen:
CS = GPIO15
DC = GPIO27
Busy = GPIO25
Reset = GPIO26

The display power pin had me scratching my head since I didn't see it anywhere in the Waveshare docs, but I found it on the schematic for the dev board. Once that was fixed the screen sprang to life. Also, if the switch isn't set correctly, the screen will refresh and then go blank/fade. Be sure to flip the switch on the board to 'A' if you're using the 7.5" v2 display.

[YoutubeBorkedMyOldHandle_why]

Cool project. I agree, e-ink displays are interesting. I've been curious about them for years. Notably they: use very little power, retain the image after disconnecting power, and they can be easily viewed outside. Nice, although on the down side they are slow and lack colour. But as you say, they are expensive (even from China.) I recently bought a tiny credit card sized display on sale from China, and even that was $10. Unless I'm sadly mistaken, the reasons they are so expensive are: greedy manufacturers and a lack of competition. So, I'll be waiting for patents to expire, other companies to start making them, and prices to drop substantially, before doing any e-ink projects.

[ericborchardt]

Can you have the esp32 send an API request to home assistant to automatically refresh the display when it's powered up?

[circuitdotlt]

what's power consumption of this? Would love a battery powered one.
Edit: I've found ESP32 can go down to 2.5uA in hibernation mode. So it all depends on straight hands of the programmer.
Have you looked into ways of using those low power modes?

[wasyl]

In the process of building something similar. Esphoime is such a great tool. Shame there isn't any any graphical design tool to help with making layout other than flash and check, rinse and repeat.

[xani]

The updates do look pretty distracting, I wonder if there is a way to only update the area that changed rather than flashing whole screen every minute?

[ajwelker]

Is there any chance you can convert the step file to the 3 stl files needed to slice in cura?

[HATipsByLarry]

Great Video. Have you thought about female thread knurled Brass inserts for the 3d printed holes? They work great. I have a link for them but i know you tube doesn't like links.

[utubepunk]

Thinking of making a Pi-Zero word processor with this e-ink screen. Do you think it can refresh fast enough for typing? 🤔

[cheyannei]

I've been wanting to make a weather station/display for years now. This will be perfect! What would I need to learn to setup Home Assistant to pull the presence or text of notices from the National weather Service, ie Hazardous Weather Outlooks or Tornado Warnings?

[johnwalker]

What is the point in showing air pressure to 4 significant figures?