LILYGO Mini E-Paper Core is another ESP32-based e-Paper display by LILYGO, but it’s a really tiny 1.02-inch e-Paper display housed in a 3D printed enclosure that reminds me of M5Stack Core with a 2-inch TFT LCD.
The tiny low-power display also offers a MicroSD card socket, a reset button, a three-way user button, as well as headers for GPIOs, ADC, DAC, SPI, and more.
- Wireless SiP – ESP32-PICO-D4 system-in-package with ESP32 dual-core processor, 4MB Flash, 2.4 GHz WIFi 4 & Bluetooth connectivity
- Storage – MicroSD card socket
- Display – 1.02-inch e-paper display with 128×80 resolution
- USB – 1x USB Type-C for power and programming
- Expansion
- 7-pin 2.54mm pitch header with 5x GPIO, 2x ADC, 2x DAC, 3.3V, and GND
- 8- pin 2.54mm pitch header with 4x GPIO, SPI, 1x ADC, 5V, VBUS, VBat, and GND
- Misc – Three-way toggle button connected to G36, G0, and G39, reset button
- Power Supply
- 5V via USB-Type-C port
- External battery support via Vbat pin, and charging circuit
- Power consumption – About 10uA in sleep mode
- 3D printed shell
You’ll need the company’s T-U2T downloader in order to flash the firmware, apparently already used with the company’s other e-Paper displays, as it’s not using a standard USB wiring.
I could not find firmware or code samples specific to Mini E-Paper Core, so the company may not have released anything yet, but the Arduino code for T5 ePaper displays should be reusable, possibly with some modifications.
LILYGO Mini E-Paper Core is sold for around $18, or $22.28 with T-U2T downloader on Aliexpress. As I complete this article, I’ve also noticed the company released another interesting product with an e-paper display, namely LILYGO T-Echo equipped with a 1.54-inch display, nRF52832 Bluetooth SoC, plus LoRaWAN connectivity, and GNSS using SoftRF open-source multifunctional DIY IoT-based general aviation proximity awareness system.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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Wondering what is the real-world application where these are getting used other than playing 🙂
E-paper display has been around for many years now but still not adopted so widely mainly due to its cost, refresh rate.
What do you think?
For anything that needs to be updated from time to time with minimum battery power. For one this small size, price tags come to mind. The system would be turned off most of the time, and there could be a schedule when ESP32 wakes up to received updated data.
monitoring systems, home automation and/or weather reporting, alarm clocks etc are all types of devices that do not need a high refresh rate and for which power savings are key factors.