bluesky_esphome

Basic ESPHOME / c++ / ESP32 configuration to display some Bluesky / atproto content

Copyright (c) 2023 John Mueller

github - blog - Bluesky

MIT license

Setup

ESPHOME is a framework for creating ESP-32 and ESP-8266 IoT devices. It integrates well with Home Assistant. Installing and setting up is well-documented (and I'm lazy).

The devices are programmed using a "yaml" file. In this case, we have a bunch of c++ code in the yaml file too.

Hardware

The file here was created for LILYGO TTGO T-Display boards. They're either battery or USB-C powered. You program them via USB.

You can get them in various places, including Aliexpress - they're around USD 8 - 15.00.

Configuration

Copy secrets-example.yaml to secrets.yaml, and secrets-example.bluesky.yaml to secrets.bluesky.yaml. These are the configuration files.

Edit the files in a text editor:

• secrets.yaml: Set wifi_ssid and wifi_password, you can leave the rest as-is.
• Get an app password in Bluesky: "Settings" / "App passwords" / "Add App Password".
• secrets.bluesky.yaml: set bluesky_account to your username, and bluesky_token to the app password you generated. Use your DID as account name, if you feel like changing it often.

Upload and enjoy

esphome run ttgo_bluesky.yaml

Once uploaded, you don't need to keep the device connected to your computer -- it uses wifi to connect to the internet and to the blue sky.

Notes

• Code is not very optimized or clean, it works, whatever.
• It uses an undocumented feed for "What's Hot": app.bsky.unspecced.getPopular - maybe this will dry up at some point.
• I'll change to a documented feed when needed.
• It also publishes to Home-Assistant, if you have that set up.
• I don't have any invites, sorry :-(