Folks,

I'd like to share a project I've been working on recently, an ESP32 based IoT gateway/control hub with TFT, touch and more:

Features
Powered by the popular ESP32 SoC
ILI9341 based 2.4″ TFT with resistive touch, PWM dimming control
Light sensor (LDR)
433Mhz RFM69 ISM radio
One WS2812B RGB LED (Neopixel)
Piezo buzzer for audible feedback
HTU21D/SHT21 temperature/humidity sensor
DS1338 real-time clock with battery backup
Four multi-purpose buttons
Option for ATSHA204 crypto authentication device

Front:

Back:

3D printable enclosure:

The project was designed to be compatible with LittlevGL, the free and open-source graphics library providing everything you need to create embedded GUI with easy-to-use graphical elements, beautiful visual effects, and low memory footprint.

As an example, I have created a MQTT Christmas lights controller, Arduino example code available on Github

More details, schematic and code: TFT32

@nca78 I am loving LittlevGL; it makes touch enable GUI development so much easier..

@nca78 said in ESP32 based IoT gateway/control hub with TFT, touch, RFM69 and more..:

XPT2046

I don't use the XPT2046 or any external ICs , the ESP32 handles it. This approach "costs" 4 pins, but I wanted to keep the BOM smaller. Also, I had concerns about sharing the HSPI with XPT2046, as I use DMA and double video buffer in my projects, I wasn't sure that would work well. The VSPI is dedicated for RFM69, maybe it can be shared with XPT2046 without issues. I guess this is something to experiment with in the following PCB revision

@nca78 said in ESP32 based IoT gateway/control hub with TFT, touch, RFM69 and more..:

Bodmer TFT eSPI

Bodmer TFT eSPI is just a normal SPI driver, well maybe optimized a bit. The key to speed (IMHO) is to use double frame buffer and DMA for the SPI, that leaves the CPU free to process the next frame while the hardware does the SPI transfer. I am not aware of such TFT library for Arduino.