birdmail

Birdmail is an offline, single-purpose ambient device that plays bird calls through the Circuit Playground Bluefruit’s onboard speaker while showing simple, non-text visuals on the TFT Gizmo. It's a tiny screen doing visuals and a speaker doing birds.

What It Does

With each press to a snap action switch:

• Cycles through a set of bird calls local to the Pacific Northwest (each a short, recognizable tone sequence).
• Loads and displays images from images/ on the TFT Gizmo (ST7789, 240×240).

Hardware

• Adafruit Circuit Playground Bluefruit
• Adafruit TFT Gizmo (ST7789, 240×240)
• Onboard speaker
• 3d printed mailbox modified from a publicly-shared stl, email me for it)

The TFT Gizmo is mounted using the standard standoffs and pogo pins. The switch is screwed to GND (C) and A1 (NO).

Software

• CircuitPython
• Mu editor
• Core libraries: displayio, adafruit_st7789
• Audio: typically simpleio for tone() or audiopwmio/audiocore depending on your implementation

Repo Layout

• code.py
  Main program; selects an image + matching call; handles pacing.
• images/
  Pre-rendered 240×240 assets shown on the TFT.
  Keep file sizes reasonable; storage and RAM are limited.
• lib/
  Required CircuitPython libraries (ST7789 driver and any helpers).
• settings.py / birds.py (optional, if present)
  Mappings of image filenames to bird-call tone sequences.

Images

Birdmail expects display assets to live in images/. Each scene is loaded from disk and shown full-screen.

Guidelines:

• Target size: 240×240 pixels.
• Prefer formats that CircuitPython can load efficiently on your board (BMP is common for displayio.OnDiskBitmap).
• Keep palettes and bit depth modest when possible.
• Filenames should match whatever mapping the code uses (for example, flicker.bmp paired to the flicker call).

Audio

• Bird calls are encoded as short sequences of tones (frequency + duration).
• Playback is kept brief so the device stays responsive and visuals can keep updating.

Installing

1. Install CircuitPython on the Circuit Playground Bluefruit (for me this was adafruit-circuitpython-circuitplayground_bluefruit-en_US-10.0.3.uf2)
2. Copy entirety of this repo into the root of CIRCUITPY

Extending Birdmail

• Add a new bird call by defining a new tone sequence.
• Add a matching visual by creating a new displayio.Group scene or swapping bitmaps/palettes.
• Keep visuals non-text and lightweight; prioritize strong silhouettes and repeatable motifs.

Constraints and Intentional Choices

• Fixed resolution: 240×240
• Fixed rotation (as used in your known-good TFT Gizmo setup)
• No NeoPixels
• No sensors or motion input
• No on-screen text

Credits / Notes

Built for a proven Circuit Playground Bluefruit + TFT Gizmo stack. Designed for repeatable delight: short calls, crisp visuals, no internet dependencies.