Add support for Lilygo T5-4.7 inch e-paper module

[lbonherbe]

Describe the problem you have/What new integration you would like
The Lyligo T5-4.7inch is a great e-paper module based on an ESP32. It has a resolution of 960*540, 16 gray level and support partial refresh. I would be great to have it integrated in ESPHome the same / similar way Waveshare e-paper screens and modules are.

Please describe your use case for this integration and alternatives you've tried:
To date there is no support for this module in ESPHome. The only support given by the maker is through Arduino IDE

Additional context
This is the maker's GitHub for this product: https://github.com/Xinyuan-LilyGO/LilyGo-EPD47

[jeremypoulter]

Would someone be able to give me some hints in to what this actually involves? I assume mainly just adding support for the actual e-paper display?

[DomoYop]

It seems that it dont use the same driver as the Waveshare e-paper series does...
it use this one: EPDiy E-Paper Driver which support the ED047TC1 E-Ink Display.

from my (limited) comprehension, it's much closer to the Inkplate which is already supported in esphome.

here is what i found analyzing the schematics: LilyGo-EPD47.pdf

8 pin for data:
IO33 -> EP_D0
IO32 -> EP_D1
IO4 -> EP_D2
IO19 -> EP_D3
IO2 -> EP_D4
IO27 -> EP_D5
IO21 -> EP_D6
IO22 -> EP_D7
 
and some direct control pin:
IO26 -> EP_STH
IO25 -> EP_CKV
IO5 -> EP_CKH

connection to shift register (74HC4094)
IO0 -> strobe
IO23 -> data
IO18 -> clock
with the corresponding output :
q0 -> EP_LE
q7 -> EP_OE
q6 -> EP_MODE
q4 -> EP_STV

it's all i have :-)

[Mitchy6]

I attempted to port the Inkplate driver;
Haven't been fully successful yet, Likely I goofed a timer or something, No scope at the moment so I'm flying blind in making sure the driver signalling/timing is how it should be.

Things to note:
Inkplate uses the MCP23017 i2c IO extender.
EPD47 uses a 74HCT4094 shift register, I modified/forked the SN74HC595 component to get it working with the reversed shift logic for the 4094 this will let you substitute the IO Call in your yaml file. the 4094 is trivial to control, May submit my fork to at least have the 4094 able to be controlled in the future.

The inkplate code has i2c enabled/forced, this is mapped to GPIO 21/22, so you'll get boot loops if you try to use it with the EPD (As GPIO 21 & 22 are used in the parallel connection for the display). You'll need to modify the component and disable the i2c call.

Inkplate has several control IO signals that aren't used on the EPD47, I've deleted these, or used them in similar functions (power enable)

That said, the sample code by vroland (https://github.com/vroland/epdiy) is a work of art, and far exceeds that of the inkplate base code by using the built in timer and I2S Parallel driver function of the ESP32.
I've pivoted and I've been trying to port the base driver much like martinberlin (martinberlin/cale-idf#27) has done for his Cale software, but Its only a past time, and I suck at C/C++
I'm assuming the Display buffer output is compatible. It's definitely doable and not far out, Someone can whip up the code pretty quick
I'll continue to mess about when I can.

What should happen is the EPD driver should be ported, and made universal to consume the inkplate and all other EPDiy type boards. This should let anyone use any of the EPDiy based board/display combos (Link above in vroland's github)

[Chrismelba-Instaclustr]

Any update on this? I could have a go if you've got some work anywhere?

[Plawasan]

Just adding a +1 here for the port, would be great to have this natively supported in ESPHome

[tiaanv]

I put something together using the edp_display drivers from Lilygo. I tried using a more generic approach for all displays supported by epdiy, but got frustrated and resorted to basic support.

The display component only supports full draw, and not partials... Partial updates in general are bad news, but I might look into support at some later stage. This was NOT thoroughly tested and it might stop working at any time... your mileage may vary.

https://github.com/tiaanv/esphome-components

Enjoy.

PS. I also tried doing this in the more correct "external_components" model, but for some reason it no longer worked when I did that.... So custom_component it is.....

[Plawasan]

Great! I tried to test this, not sure where I'm going wrong. I've cloned the repo to the base of my esphome config and renamed the folder to custom_components otherwise I was getting errors even recognizing the platform

~/esphome$ git clone https://github.com/tiaanv/esphome-components.git
~/esphome$ mv esphome-components/ custom_components

I've added a very basic definition of the display into my yaml:

display:
  - platform: t547
    id: t5_display
    update_interval: 30s
    lambda: |-
      it.line(0, 0, 50, 50);

but I'm hitting this error when trying to compile it:

Compiling .pioenvs/esp-display/lib9aa/ESPAsyncWebServer-esphome/WebAuthentication.cpp.o
src/main.cpp:36:1: error: 't547' does not name a type
 t547::T547 *t5_display;
 ^
src/main.cpp: In function 'void setup()':
src/main.cpp:1608:3: error: 't5_display' was not declared in this scope
   t5_display = new t547::T547();
   ^
src/main.cpp:1608:20: error: 't547' does not name a type
   t5_display = new t547::T547();
                    ^
*** [.pioenvs/esp-display/src/main.cpp.o] Error 1
========================== [FAILED] Took 4.77 seconds ==========================

Any pointers? Thanks again for the effort, I've been using this display for a while with the code borrowed from here - https://github.com/rbaron/eink-ha but I would still prefer native ESPHome integration.

Any chance you can also post the sample yaml? Thanks!

Edit:
I've added the header to my config:

esphome:
  includes:
    - custom_components/t547/t547.h

now I'm missing the driver.. I cloned the repo but being the noob I am I'm not sure where to place it for esphome to find it..

Compiling .pioenvs/esp-display/src/main.cpp.o
In file included from src/main.cpp:43:0:
src/t547.h:7:24: fatal error: epd_driver.h: No such file or directory

[tiaanv]

remove the includes statement... I got the same issue... What you are trying here is the "external_components" model... That does not work... What you need is to locate the esphome folder in your config dir in HomeAssistant... Then create the "custom_components" folder in there if you don't already have one.. then make sure to copy the T547 folder into that folder. On my system I'm accessing it via a samba share from my windows machine..

effective folder structure:
\config\esphome\custom_components\t547

with all the files in there...

This method works for me... Other that that, I'm afraid I haven't spent enough time with development of custom components to know why I can't get it to work as an "external component"

[Plawasan]

I probably should have mentioned that I have ESPHome running on a completely different machine (a laptop) than Home Assistant, that's running in a docker container on my RPi, not on Hass

but.. I also have a VM with hass.io running on the laptop, I used the terminal add-on to clone the git repo to config/esphome/, renamed esphome-components to custom_components, then I got no errors in the yaml editor..

but it still won't compile:

Compiling /data/esp-display/.pioenvs/esp-display/src/esphome/core/util.cpp.o
Compiling /data/esp-display/.pioenvs/esp-display/src/main.cpp.o
src/main.cpp:34:1: error: 't547' does not name a type
 t547::T547 *t5_display;
 ^
src/main.cpp: In function 'void setup()':
src/main.cpp:354:3: error: 't5_display' was not declared in this scope
   t5_display = new t547::T547();
   ^
src/main.cpp:354:20: error: 't547' does not name a type
   t5_display = new t547::T547();
                    ^
*** [/data/esp-display/.pioenvs/esp-display/src/main.cpp.o] Error 1

[tiaanv]

I don't have enough experience in this regard. I'm sorry I can't help more... Perhaps one of the smarter people can figure it out... that sees this post.... I'm not near my dev PC, but perhaps tomorrow I will give the external components route a go again... then it should work... until then, I hope you figure something out..

[osresearch]

I was getting the same t547 does not name a type errors and determined that what was needed is an empty __init__.py in the custom_components/t547 directory. Not sure why; this was based on looking at the difference to the waveshare_epaper component.

Here is a working example:

esphome:
  name: t547demo
  platform: esp32
  board: esp32dev
  platformio_options:
    upload_speed: 1500000

wifi:
  ssid: "YOUR-SSID"
  password: "*********"

time:
  - platform: sntp
    id: ntp

font:
  - file: 'IBMPlexMono-Bold.ttf'
    id: din_big
    glyphs: "+-0123456789.:"
    size: 300
  - file: 'IBMPlexMono-Bold.ttf'
    id: din_med
    size: 100

display:
  - platform: t547
    rotation: 180
    update_interval: 60s
    lambda: |-
      it.strftime(15, 310, id(din_big), TextAlign::BASELINE_LEFT, "%H:%M", id(ntp).now());
      it.strftime(50, 500, id(din_med), TextAlign::BASELINE_LEFT, "%Y-%m-%d %a", id(ntp).now());

The redraw is full screen, which is fairly slow. Using the sample code from Lilygo I was able to do partial updates, so it should be possible to enable.

[Plawasan]

martin@EliteBook:~/esphome/custom_components/t547$ touch __init__.py

That's all it took.. now I have work to do over the weekend to create a decent dashboard but it should be pretty straightforward from here.. thanks!

[tiaanv]

The Init.py issue was because the file in my local source failed to upload to github. It skips empty files... I added a single blank space to correct that issue. I guess in theory I can now try the proper external components approach again... Will make it easier for most to implement, and it will be pulled from git automatically...

[NeroWard]

The redraw is full screen, which is fairly slow. Using the sample code from Lilygo I was able to do partial updates, so it should be possible to enable.

Share the code with which you were able to do a partial update? Sorry for my English.