We’ve very recently covered M5paper IoT development kit based on ESP32 WiSoC, and equipped with a 4.7-inch touchscreen e-Ink display together with a 1,150mAh battery all nicely packed into an enclosure.
It looks great, but costs $69, so if you’d like to integrate this type of ESP32 connected display into your own project at a lower cost, you may be interested in TTGO T5 4.7-inch e-Paper display with 16 gray levels fitted with an ESP32-WROVER-E module with 16MB flash, and 8MB PSRAM.
- Display
- 4.7-inch ePaper display with 960×540 resolution, 16 gray levels , partial refresh support
- 6-pin FPC touchscreen connector
- Wireless module – ESP32-WROVER-E with ESP32-D0WDQ6 V3 dual-core processor, 16MB flash, 8MB PSRAM
- USB – 1x USB-C port
- Expansion – 4-pin connector with GPIOs, GND, 3.3V
- Misc – 1x reset button, 4x user buttons
- Debugging – USB-C port connected to USB to TTL CP2104 chip
- Power Supply
- 5V/1A via USB-C port
- 18650 battery metal connectors
- 2-pin connector for LiPo battery
- Battery charge and discharge protection chip
- Sleep mode current – ~170uA
- Dimensions – TBD
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 touchscreen 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.
TTGO T5 4.7-inch e-Paper ESP32 display is now sold for $25.51 plus shipping, but if you’d like smaller or cheaper displays the company offers variants from 1.54-inch to 3.7-inch for around $14 and up.

Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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