There are many people and companies that want to get involved in constructing an e-reader or e-note with an e-paper display. Buying a pricy development kit with a logic board and EPD can cost hundreds of dollars. There is another option, one that only costs $25 and comes with a 4.7-inch e-Paper display with 16 gray levels fitted with an ESP32-WROVER-E module with 16MB of internal storage and 8MB RAM.
This model features a 4.7 inch E INK display with a resolution of 4.7- 960×540 and partial refresh. It has a USB-C port. LilyGO provides two version of the board: one with connectors for the 18650 battery, and one without for people preferring to use a LiPo battery. While there’s a 6-pin touch screen connector, LilyGO does not appear to offer a touchscreen at this time.
The company says the display can be programmed with the Arduino IDE, ESP-IDF or MicroPython, but they only provide sample code for Arduino based on EPDiy E-Paper Driver project. Typical applications listed by LilyGO include desktop weather station, STEM education, and IoT device.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
