Waveshare

As part of my investigation into using Breezybox as an ESP32 Shell program, I saw in Valentyn Danylchuk's documentation that he had tailored his Breezybox product for a Waveshare Touch system.  This comprises a 1024x600 pixel 7" touch screen with an ESP32S3 attached and costs £40.  It looked exciting so I purchased one from Waveshare.

Although Breezybox dictates ESP-IDF is used to build firmware Waveshare provide a wide range of examples with instructions for both ESP-IDF and Arduino.  Instructions and examples are high quality making it easy to test out functionality.

06_LCD test shows the screens ability to display, colours, text and pictures.
07_SD does a quick SD card test.
08_TOUCH is amazing, you can touch up to 5 points on the screen (a right handful) simultaneously. The screen registers all of them and the demo shows a circle at each location.

LVGL tests show how it can provide all manner of GUI elements and includes a touch controlled slideshow.

My experience of IDF is that it is harder to build firmware.  However the IDF examples are clearly written so I was able to build and run the same demo tutorials. 

Outro

The Waveshare Touch is a splendid bit of hardware. Waveshare have produced some excellent documentation for hobbyists.  They have interesting products and I will certainly look to purchase "toys" from them in the future.

Unfortunately, I couldn't get the Breezybox software to work properly with the screen.  I will update this post if and when I have sorted the problems out.