I want to create a portable device that tests optical, gas, and temperature values. I tried the image processing with a ESP32S3 N16R8 WROOM Cam but the frame rate is too slow and I am worried about the processing time if combined with the gas and temperature sensors. I am thinking of using a XIAO ESP32S3 Sense dedicated to image processing, while the ESP32S3 N16R8 focuses on the machine learning. I considered the Raspberry Pi modules but it's a little bigger and the power supply is a problem since I want it to be portable. Is this idea possible or is it too complicated.

Hi everyone, I'm working on a digital gauge project using an ESP32 Devkit and a GC9B72 display, which is a bit uncommon but similar to the GC9A01 with a different driver. Yesterday, I wired everything up using raw copper wires and tested it with the LovyanGFX library. Everything worked perfectly-| started with a simple color loop and then uploaded code to display custom images for my gauge. Today, my new jumper wires arrived, so l disconnected the copper wires and rewired the board with the jumpers. However, when I powered it on, only the backlight came on while the display itself remained completely blank. I tried pressing the reset button and re-uploading the working code, but nothing changed. I then tried changing pins both in code and physically for signals like CS and DC, but still got no results. On a side note, whenever I tried assigning GPIO 2 to DC or CS in code, l got a compilation error like "exit status 2," (this didn't happened yesterday and it worked fine with the GPIO
2) though other pins compile fine. I checked the jumper wires for continuity and tested for short circuits both on the esp32 and the screen with a multimeter, (i also changed the esp32 with another one i had) and everything passed. I even inspected the board under a microscope to make sure there were no tiny pieces of copper or solder bridge, but it was spotless. Finally, I even tried going back to the original raw copper wires that worked yesterday, but the screen still stays blank while the backlight illuminates. Since the wiring tests fine and the backlight is on, I'm completely stuck and can't figure out why it suddenly stopped working. Has anyone experienced something similar or have any idea what might be going wrong? Thanks in advance for any advice!

I turned the $5 “Cheap Yellow Display” (ESP32-2432S028R) into a self-running pixel aquarium — fork with a ~100-species reef guide, sharks, and a follow-cam

Posting a fork of the CYD aquarium (upstream: Lagerpun/esp32-cyd-aquarium, itself an adaptation of Livegrid OpenMatrix). It boots straight into an autonomous little pixel tank on the 2.8" ILI9341 — moving water, fish, turtles, snakes, octopuses, boids, plants, drifting food and a 12h clock — rendered with a dot-grid so it reads like a tiny LED matrix.

What this fork adds on top of upstream:
- ~100-species reef roster (SpeciesCatalog.h) with weighted spawn rates, family silhouettes and six size classes
- In-tank Reef Guide — paged and touchable, records which species you've discovered to LittleFS (/field_guide.json)
- Large fauna — sharks, whale sharks, reef mantas
- Tank camera — tap a creature to follow/zoom it, tap again to zoom out
- Panel fixes — TFT_INVERSION_OFF so colors read correctly on common CYD panels, and TOUCH_INVERT_X = true to fix the inverted XPT2046 X axis
- Manual backlight — touch the top strip (left dims, right brightens); auto-brightness from the GPIO34 light sensor still works
- Arduino core 3.x pinned via pioarduino so ledcAttach() PWM backlight works; safer 115200 upload baud for CH340 boards

Quick start (PlatformIO):
pio run -e esp32-2432s028r
pio run -e esp32-2432s028r -t upload --upload-port COMx

Wi-Fi is optional — NTP time sync when present, compile-time clock fallback otherwise. Docs cover hardware variants and troubleshooting.

Repo:https://github.com/francistse/esp32-cyd-aquarium (AGPL-3.0)

Only have the common ESP32-2432S028R to test against — happy for hardware reports on other CYD variants.

Hey everyone!

A while ago, I shared the first version of my TYPE-2 Synthesizer project. The goal was to build a studio-quality DSP audio engine using just an ESP32-S3 and some cheap components .

The feedback was amazing, but many of you pointed out that building it on a breadboard with capacitive copper tape and dozens of jumper wires was a bit of a nightmare for stability and I2S audio noise.

So I decided to go pro and designed a dedicated motherboard PCB in KiCad!

Everything is still 100% open-source (C++ source, KiCad files, and Gerbers are all up). You can find the full repo here:

https://github.com/Alxdreee/TYPE-2

I routed a 2-layer board that eliminates all jumper wires. It embeds the touch-sensing pads directly into the layout and provides a rock-solid ground plane for the PCM5102A DAC, completely isolating the audio out from the high-frequency digital noise of the ESP32.

(Fabrication note: These prototype printed circuit boards were manufactured by PCBWay, which is now sponsoring the project! The quality of the screen printing and the conductive traces proved to be flawless for this type of sensitive I2C routing.).

Thanks to the ESP32-S3’s native USB-OTG port, the synth is now a plug-and-play MIDI device. Even better: I wrote a Python bridge that lets you stream the 16-bit/44.1kHz raw PCM audio directly over USB to your PC speakers !

I swapped the old Moog ladder filter for a much more stable trapezoidal State Variable Filter (SVF) that handles extreme resonance without blowing up the DSP core. You can now save and load your custom patches (filter cutoff, overdrive, delay, analog slop) directly into the ESP32’s non-volatile memory via a dedicated OLED menu. Core 1 is still strictly locked to the DSP audio loop running at 44.1 kHz, while Core 0 handles the I2C OLED grid animations and the MPR121 capacitive touch pooling without causing a single audio dropout.

If you want to build one yourself, you can either grab the Gerber files and solder the modules onto the PCB, or stick to the good old breadboard prototype (I kept the wiring diagrams updated in the repo).

I’ve also updated the full step-by-step build guide on Instructables:

https://www.instructables.com/DIY-35-Polyphonic-Synthesizer-the-TYPE-2/

Let me know what you think of the new board and features! I’m still planning to design a 3D-printed enclosure next.

when using ESP32, if programmer wanna check whether the ESP bluetooth is advertising or not, they have to check the existence of historical event like Advertise_Started / Advertise_Stoped which is generated by some function like startAdvertising() and stopAdvertising() .

but ,why we can't just check the current passing through the Radio Emitting Part inside of the chip and provide the developer some foolproof function like isBLE_Advertising() ?

is it just physically impossible or logically risk ?

and according to the answer of AI (not sure whether it s correct) :
because code made by developer is running at the CPU, but the fundamental function like connecting and advertising is executed in the co-processor ,and they communicated under HCI protocol ,
so ,the CPU sending the msg to the co-processor and ask "are you advertising " sounds very trouble (e.g. it may block the CPU ,and simultaneously interrupt the co-processor ), but ,
is it really physically impossible to just link a pin of CPU to the physical address inside the co-processor that indicating the current through the Radio Emitting Part ?

Finally finished the status display for the inverter/battery backup I've been building. It's a 4" 480x480 ESP32-S3 panel, magnet-mounted to the front of the inverter, running ESPHome + LVGL and pulling everything live from Home Assistant. It shows combined SOC with a per-pack breakdown for my 10kWh bank (two 48V server rack batteries), along with solar production, net grid import/export, battery power in/out, inverter temp, and a big clock.

Also replaced the inverter's loud stock 92mm fans with a quiet 140mm Noctua. Home Assistant toggles it from a YoLink temp sensor. Went with YoLink because the steel chassis is basically a Faraday cage - WiFi doesn't get out, but LoRa does.

Happy to answer any questions if anyone's interested in this build.