display-thing

A simple picture frame thing that sits on your desk.

Project Hardware

• Microcontroller: Waveshare Universal e-Paper Raw Panel Driver Board
• Display: Waveshare 7.5inch e-Paper HAT (800x480)
• Frame: IKEA RÖDALM (13x18 cm)

Setup Instructions

Prerequisites

• Python 3.7 or later
• PlatformIO

Python Environment Setup

It is recommended to set up a Python virtual environment to isolate the project dependencies from your system Python installation:

Note

Python is used in this project to gzip compress the HTML pages for the web interface.

If you choose not to use a virtual environment, you can install the dependencies globally, but this may interfere with other Python projects on your system.

# Create a virtual environment (recommended)
python3 -m venv venv

# Activate the virtual environment
# On Linux/macOS:
source venv/bin/activate
# On Windows:
venv\Scripts\activate

Install the required dependencies:

pip install -r requirements.txt

Building and Uploading

Building the project:

pio run

Uploading firmware to the ESP32:

pio run --target upload --environment esp32dev

Monitoring the serial output:

pio run --target monitor --environment esp32dev

Uploading and monitoring afterward in one step:

pio run --target upload --target monitor --environment esp32dev