An ESP32 e-paper frame that shows notes sent over Telegram in a pixel-art speech bubble, with a live web mirror.
~1,470
lines of handwritten firmware, including a panel driver the library didn't have
The problem
A gift that needed to feel handmade but update itself: notes arrive from a phone and appear on paper-like e-ink.
What I built
- Firmware for an ESP32-S3 e-paper panel with 11 bot commands, a schedule engine and dithered photos.
- A hand-written UC8276C panel driver, because the standard e-paper library had none.
- A live web mirror built on a custom PNG encoder, served from Vercel Functions.
Stack
- C++
- Arduino / PlatformIO
- ESP32-S3
- Python
- Pillow
- TypeScript
- Vercel
Shows
Sep 2026 · Personal gift — the tech is shown, never the messages.