Chinese wonders - ESP32S3 + RLCD 4.2"
TL;DR
- A Waveshare ESP32-S3-RLCD-4.2 board combines a 400x300 RLCD display, ESP32S3 with PSRAM, ES8311 audio codec, speaker, two I2S microphones, and Li-ion charging plus 18650 holder.
- The project turns it into an internet radio that boots onto Wi-Fi, syncs time via NTP, loads stream URLs from flash, and serves a setup web page in the background.
- The 4.2-inch display drives a 32-bar spectrum analyser at 240 MHz over SPI, with the display running at 40 MHz.
- That setup reaches about 35 FPS and produces a visibly cool audio visualizer.
- Pushing SPI speed too far causes misfiring pixels and artefacts, and the display starts to 'scream' around 60 MHz.
Generated by the language model.
An interesting PCB with a 400x300 RLCD display, ESP32S3 with PSRAM, ES8311 audio codec, speaker, two i2s microphones and li-ion charging circuit and 18650 cage can be purchased on a well-known Chinese portal and more.
https://docs.waveshare.com/ESP32-S3-RLCD-4.2
You can do many different projects on this. The first thing I did was an audio stream player from the internet - commonly referred to as an 'internet radio'.
Programming this device is great fun and allows you to learn a lot. So, quickly - the device, when switched on, is supposed to connect to the wifi network, download the time from the NTP server, read the list of stream addresses from the flash and immediately play the last selected station, and in the background, host a simple web page where you can configure the wifi and stream addresses for yourself. As the display is quite large - 4.2" I decided to stuff a 32 bar audio spectrum analyser in there, ESP driven at 240 MHz, SPI to the 40 MHz display and managed to get about 35 FPS on this analyser and it looks pretty cool. I'm sharing all the code with all the libraries used etc - zipped up the whole platform project in Visual Studio. I took the opportunity to check how it feels to do the 'interfaces' to the displays using SquareLine Studio - and it's quite convenient, I was previously 'sculpting' everything by hand. In the video you can see misfiring pixels, artefacts - but that's because I recorded it while experimenting at SPI speed - and this display "starts to scream" at around 60 MHz.
There is a firmware.bin file in the .pio directory that can be uploaded straight to the ESP without compiling the sources, when you turn it on the device will not find the saved network and will create its own, the rest of the instructions will be on the screen.
Anyone have any ideas what else can be programmed on such a gadget?
dktr wrote 935 posts with
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Comments
It looks great. The RLCD doesn't provide for backlighting? It has built-in microphones, I wonder if it would be possible to do local voice control of home functions? Once integrated with some LLM, you... [Read more]
Will Doom run on this? [Read more]
Very cool, price over 100PLN, so you need to have a more concretised application ;) I immediately think of some notification display, some text output from ChatGPT ;) But let's give the "expert"... [Read more]
Report: ESP32-S3 + RLCD 4,2" as a hobby and product platform for the European market Short conclusion This board is most interesting not as "another ESP32 with a screen" but as a small, low-power... [Read more]
So there you have it, you can act. Throw in some more vibe coding, have it program ready-made modules for you, you can personalise for a particular company the functionality on the board, basically with... [Read more]
A device with a monochrome LCD is unlikely to conquer the market, but, for example, for displaying weather forecasts or share prices or cryptocurrencies it could be suitable, although it would be useful... [Read more]
For statuses in well-lit rooms, and these are mostly offices/factories, it would be OK. Add physical buttons, not to mention voice control, and it makes a mini communication panel for the manual worker... [Read more]
As listening to music and radio from the web it can probably also be :) [Read more]
I don't quite understand the concept of powering this system. Supposedly rechargeable - but a working ESP with WiFi takes its toll. The chip is not small - a bit unportable (e.g. in a pocket). If it is... [Read more]
They just made a module to fit as many things/features as possible without thinking about what is useful or worrying about things like power consumption. That's the kind of thing they design for hobbyists... [Read more]
There are videos on the net of what can be done with it. The authors have interesting ideas. [Read more]
Yes, there is some. I was surprised by the actual resolution: https://obrazki.elektroda.pl/9665604000_1779361400_bigthumb.jpg [Read more]
If it gets cheaper (display alone) to ~£50 I'll take ;) [Read more]