I’ve been putting off writing about the Seed Xiao display panel (ESP32 powered) as I could not figure out how to start the ball rolling – then this morning it started to fall into place.The display is touted as working with Home Assistant – and it does – kind of.I turned on the (rechargeable) display a while back and got no-where.
I have ESPHome installed in Home Assistant (trivial to install) and I’ve used it to integrate some Apollo sensors into HA but that’s about it.So when I originally opened ESPHome inside Home Assistant and it noticed the ePaper display magically appear as an entry, I did the factory install (pressing a couple of buttons) and no joy.That’s when it went in the cupboard.
Today, I took another look and noted I’d put in the simple initialisation YAML file my WiFi SSID and password…..and missed off the quotes.That a difference that made – I corrected the problem and told ESPHome to install the basic settings – done.
NOW I noted that it knew about the display – and the display would now work wirelessly – but to do WHAT? It turns out that a page initially missing from the Seeed website now has all the information needed to get a basic display up and running… so I took the minimal install – went to edit in ESPHome – and added this code (from the examples) to the very basic initial information… # define font to display words font: - file: "gfonts://Inter@700" id: font1 size: 24 # define SPI interface spi: clk_pin: GPIO8 mosi_pin: GPIO10 display: - platform: waveshare_epaper cs_pin: GPIO3 dc_pin: GPIO5 busy_pin: number: GPIO4 inverted: true reset_pin: GPIO2 model: 7.50inv2 update_interval: 30s lambda: |- it.print(0, 0, id(font1), "Hello World!"); Well, that proved useful – I saved the edit in ESPHome and hit install and now this code was loaded onto the display WIRELESSLY.Of course copying someone’s example is good but leaves you wondering – could I simply add more text? Could I add another example on the end? The good news is YES.Was I excited? Sure.
Next, add something from Home Assistant.I blindly followed another example in the link above – this time not so good – as I don’t have the exact same entity in Home Assistant – but now I’m a convert so I’ve asked Seeed to help me out with a simple example of one of my sensors in HA.I’m usually slow to get started with something new but vry quickly learn given a little help.
Assuming they come back to me – how long with it be before I have a full wall display with all of my Home Assistant temperature, humidity and pressure sensors etc in pretty boxes? Not long.For now that’s it – really worth a play and if you’re not into Home Assistant they have examples for Arduino and other platforms – as usual it’s support and software that makes or breaks a project.An why this instead of pretty LCD or LED? Power.
Turn it off – display goes blank, turn it back on, same display comes up again and only uses power on change – that display can sit there showing static info for months on a charge it seems.I can’t wait to get this populated with info and up on the wall in our hallway.No leads – really thin… easily views in bright light.
Go on – ask if it’ll handle sunlight… yes but here’s a thing, I recently put an solar powered temperature sensor out in the Spanish summer sun – 40c in the shade – but over 50c in direct sunlight – so be careful (I temporarily killed the sensor – won’t do that again).This is fun – wall mounted or desk mounted and light enough to fasten with nanotape to the wall.
