reTerminal E1001/E1002 Review – B&W and color ePaper displays tested with SenseCraft HMI and Home Assistant

Seeed Studio sent us samples of the reTerminal E1001 (monochrome) and E1002 (color) ePaper displays for review. They are powered by an ESP32-S3 microcontroller providing WiFi and Bluetooth LE wireless connectivity, and are designed for low-power information display applications, consuming power only when updating the screen content.

This makes them ideal for tasks requiring long battery life (average of 3 months per charge, depending on how often they are updated) and always-on display capabilities. In this review, we will unbox the devices, go through a teardown, and test them with Seeed Studio’s SenseCraft no-code HMI platform, as well as ESPHome firmware for Home Assistant integration.

reTerminal E1001/E1002 unboxing

We received two cardboard packages that look identical and are labeled “Seeed Studio reTerminal ePaper Display”.

But the sticker on the bottom side of the boxes provides clarity…

Inside each box, we’ll find the ePaper display, a USB Type-C cable, a display stand with screws, a screwdriver, and a quick start guide.

So the accessories for either display are identical. The main visual difference is the size of the displays: the E1001 features a 7.5-inch monochrome ePaper display, while the E1002 has a 7.3-inch color ePaper display.

On the back of the display, we’ll get a sticker providing information about the model, a wall mount hole, a smaller hole for the stand, and symbols for the ports and buttons.

The top side features three control buttons and a microphone.

The left side comes with a MicroSD card slot, a power switch, power and status LEDs, and a USB-C port.

Finally, we’ll find an 8-pin expansion port/header on the right side.

reTerminal E1001/E1002 teardown

We’ve torn down both the E1001 and E1002, but the internals are identical, so we’ll only show the photo for the reTerminal E1002. To do so, we used the provided screwdriver to loose nthe four screws in the corners of the back cover. Be careful when removing the cover, as the antenna cable is connected between the mainboard and the back cover.

The main PCB features three buttons (B1, B2, B3), a microSD card slot, a CR1220 coin cell battery holder for the RTC (not populated), the ESP32-S3 module (whose markings are unreadable) connected to a 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi antenna module. A 3.7V 2,000mAh Li-Po battery (7.4Wh) powers display updates when the USB-C cable is not connected. The back cover also features a few ventilation slots.

The only obvious difference between the reTerminal E1001 and E1002 PCBs is the display connector and FPC cable: 50-pin for the color display, and 24-pin for the monochrome display.

Review of the reTerminal E1001/E1002 ePaper displays with the SenseCraft HMI Platform

By default, the reTerminal E1001 and E1002 ePaper displays integrate with the SenseCraft HMI no-code platform, which offers a web-based interface for creating and managing content to be displayed on the device. Let’s try it. We’ll mostly follow the instructions provided on the wiki for the reTerminal E Series displays.

The first step is to flip the switch on the back to the ON position, and the green LED will light up to confirm that the power is on.

The first time, the device will provide information to get started, including the name of the WiFi access point and a QR code pointing to the “User Guide” (the aforementioned wiki).

Network configuration can be done either via a computer or the SenseCraft mobile app. We did it through a computer: start by connecting to the device’s Wi-Fi access point named “reTerminal E1001-xxxx”, and you will be automatically redirected to the config page where you can select your home Wi-Fi network and enter the password (it supports only 2.4GHz Wi-Fi; 5GHz is not supported since it’s based on ESP32-S3).

Once the connection is successful, the reTerminal will beep and display a “Pair Code”.

We can now go to the SenseCraft HMI website to register an account and add our display. To do so, go to the Workspace tab, click Add Device, give it a name, and enter the “Pair Code” you got on the display.

Once connected, the device will prompt you to upgrade the firmware if there’s indeed a new version.

The platform requires us to update it by connecting the reTerminal E1001 to a computer via a USB-C cable, selecting the reTerminal E1001 device (USB Serial (COM5) in our case), the latest firmware version, and clicking Flash to start the firmware update process.

Now that the reTerminal E1001 is flashed with the latest firmware, we can create our first dashboard. SenseCraft HMI provides powerful content creation tools, such as:

• Gallery: Turns the reTerminal into a digital photo frame, allowing you to create slideshows with customizable display durations.
• Canvas: Design layouts using drag-and-drop elements, including text, images, time, date, weather widgets, graphs, shapes, and divider lines.
• RSS Feed: Display news or blog content directly from RSS feeds.
• Web Content: Embed specific sections of websites, such as transit schedules, stock prices, or news updates.

You can also configure image update intervals, color schemes, and choose between portrait and landscape orientation.

We’ll start with one of the most powerful features of the SenseCraft HMI platform: the “AI Image Generator”. To have something colorful, we switch to the reTerminal E1002. To get started, simply type what design you would like, and we politely asked it to “create a calendar for December 2025”. The system automatically generated a layout for us.

The design looked awesome, and we were so dazzled by this incredible beauty and ease of use that we only noticed minor issues like 8-day weeks and the first day of the month starting on the 2nd after loading the design on the actual display. That’s because we didn’t select the right tool for the job, and once we switched to the “AI Layout Generator”, the results were much better, although not quite as beautiful.

The layout is fully editable as well, so any errors could be corrected if needed. Here’s what it looks like on the reTerminal E1002 display.

If you prefer to create your own layout from scratch, you can do that in the UI Design. For this example, we planned to use the left side for weather information and the right side for live currency exchange rates. We started with the left side: add an icon by going to Data -> Weather -> C°/F° -> City, then select the desired weather elements, such as temperature, humidity, and weather conditions.

We can access various icons in Image -> Icons, or add more from Pictogrammers by copying the SVG code and pasting it into the URL field.

To add currency exchange rate information, go to Data -> Data Settings and fill the fields as follows:

• Data Key = rates.THB
• Precision = 2
• Remote Data URL = https://open.er-api.com/v6/latest/USD.

At this stage, the data may still appear as “Data” (or a placeholder) in the editor. The actual exchange rate value will only be visible when you click Preview or deploy it to the display. We repeated the same steps for the exchange of other currencies against the Thai Baht.

We also added the date, battery level, and a QR code to the CNX Software website. After creating the dashboard, we clicked Deploy to Device to send it to the device.

The result is pretty neat, especially when we look at a distance, as if we get too close (e.g., holding it in our hands like reading a book), the low 800×480 resolution impacts the clarity of the characters.

Testing the reTerminal E Series ePaper Displays with ESPHome firmware and Home Assistant

The reTerminal E1001 or E1002 ePaper displays can be integrated into your Smart Home setup using the popular ESPHome firmware and Home Assistant open-source home automation framework.

While we’ve often written about Home Assistant, we’ve never used it ourselves in CNX Software’s “headquarters”, as Paisit did most of the Smart Home reviews in recent times. However, since he is temporarily unavailable, Suthinee has taken over for now, and the first step was to install Home Assistant OS on a Raspberry Pi 4 8GB.

It took some effort, mainly due to unreliable microSD cards or card readers, but we finally got Home Assistant OS 16.3 up and running.

We then configured and accessed Home Assistant via its web interface, and followed the instructions on Seeed Studio’s wiki to get started with ESPHome and initial Home Assistant configuration.

We installed the ESPHome Device Builder add-on by navigating to Settings -> Add-ons -> Add-on Store and searching for “ESPHome”.

To add a new device, go to ESPHome -> New Device, enter the desired device name, and select ESP32-S3.

After creating the device, click EDIT to proceed with the firmware installation.

We will demonstrate a very basic example: displaying the text “Hello World!” on the ePaper screen of the reTerminal E1001 through Home Assistant. We copied the sample code from the Seeed Studio wiki page and pasted it after the captive_portal: line in the YAML file. We then adjusted the text to make it larger by setting the size to 40, and also configured the Wi-Fi with ssid: CNX_Software_Xiaomi and password: xxxxxxxxx.

After that, click INSTALL to flash the code onto the device. You will see options for installation: either wirelessly (over-the-air) or via USB.

We went with the “Wirelessly” installation method, and the firmware was successfully flashed onto the device. As a result, we now see the message “Hello World!” displayed on the ePaper screen of the reTerminal E1001.

Now that we’ve confirmed that Home Assistant integration is working, let’s try something more interesting. We will pull weather data from Home Assistant and display it on the ePaper screen of the reTerminal E1001, following the instructions provided by Tutoduino9 and using the configuration files from the related GitHub repository.

We used the Meteorologisk institutt (Met.no) included by default in Home Assistant, and providing weather forecasts based on your location. The user can configure units (°C, %, etc.) as needed.

We started by creating a Template Sensor in Home Assistant. Go to Settings -> Add-ons -> File Editor and copy the configuration.yaml file from GitHub there.

Then go to ESPHome Builder and edit the YAML file for reTerminal E1001 using the reTerminal-E1001.yaml file on GitHub with your own keys and passwords.

At first, we encountered a minor issue: the on_boot section needed to be at the same indentation level as name. After fixing that, the installation completed successfully, and the result can be seen in the image below.

Conclusion

Using the reTerminal E1001 (monochrome) and E1002 (color) ePaper displays with Seeed Studio’s SenseCraft HMI platform is user-friendly and straightforward. You can easily create display dashboards via a web-based interface without needing deep coding knowledge. The platform also includes powerful AI-assisted design features that significantly reduce layout time and offer flexibility for diverse UI designs.

For integration with Home Assistant, both models work well through ESPHome firmware. Installation and configuration are done directly via the web interface, enabling display of sensor data, device statuses, energy usage, weather information, and more on the ePaper screen. However, note that the learning curve to use Home Assistant is much steeper than the one for SenseCraft HMI Platform. However, it gives users more flexibility and enables them to interface the display with their Smart Home setup.

While the advertised battery life is said to be 3 months per charge on average, real-world battery life largely depends on display patterns and update frequency. The E1002 color ePaper display, especially when cycling through multiple screens and refreshing data every 5 minutes, shows noticeably shorter battery life. In contrast, the E1001 monochrome model should be able to approach the claimed duration when displaying a single static screen with minimal or infrequent updates. The refresh time is shorter on the E1001 (2-3 seconds) and takes around 17 seconds on the E1002.

We’d like to thank Seeed Studio for sending the reTerminal E1001 and E1002 ePaper displays for review. The E1001 model sells for $79 on the Seeed Studio store, while the E1002 6-color model goes for $109.  Both models can also be found on AliExpress starting at $74.28 and $105.06 respectively.

CNXSoft: This article is a translation – with some additional insights – of the original review on CNX Software Thailand by Suthinee Kerdkaew.

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