LILYGO T-TWR is an ESP32-S3 development board fitted with an SA868 Walkie-Talkie module and a UHF or VHF antenna, a speaker, a microphone, a small 0.96-inch OLED, and a 18650 battery holder, plus some I/Os for expansion.
Equipped with an ESP32-S3-WROOM-1-16NR8 module, the T-TWR offers WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity, a dual-core processor with 16MB flash and 8MB PSRAM, and enables users to design their own Walkie-Talkie, while its expansion capabilities allow the control of devices.
LILYGO T-TWR specifications:
- Wireless module – Espressif ESP32-S3-WROOM-1-N16R8 module with ESP32-S3 dual-core LX7 microprocessor @ up to 240 MHz with Vector extension for machine learning, 16MB FLASH, 8MB PSRAM, WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 5 LE/Mesh
- Display – 0.96-inch OLED with 128×64 resolution based on SSD1306 I2C display driver
- SA868 Walkie-Talkie module based on RDA1846S chip
- Bandwidth: 12.5 kHz/25 kHz
- Sensitivity: -124 dBm
- Support 1.6W or 1.8W mode. The latter is not recommended due to the high temperature when enabled
- Three types:
- UHF @ 400-480 MHz
- VHF @ 134-174 MHz
- “350” @ 320-400 MHz
- SMA antenna connector for UHF/350 antenna or VHF antenna
- Audio – Speaker and microphone
- USB – 1x USB Type-C port for power/charging and programming
- Expansion
- 2x 13-pin headers with up to 16x GPIO, 10x ADC, 2x UART, 1x SPI, Touch interface, 5V (VBUS), 3.3V, and GND
- 4-pin STEMMA QT/Qwiic connector
- Misc
- Boot, Reset, and user (IO3) button
- Battery switch
- Three-way encoder & switch
- Power Supply
- 5V via USB port
- 18650 battery holder and TP4054 charging chip
- Dimensions – 122 x 32 x 22 mm (with SMA connector)
The T-TWR ESP32-S3 Walkie-Talkie board can be programmed with the Arduino IDE or PlatformIO, and LILYGO provides documentation as well as schematics (PDF), datasheets, and sample code on GitHub. Two samples are provided one using the board as an actual Walkie-Taklie, and the “at_debug” demo to control the board through AT commands over a serial interface.
LILYGO is selling the T-TWR board for $41.98 to $45.98 on Aliexpress including shipping, but not taxes (VAT). It provides an alternative to the SOCORAD32 ESP32 walkie-talkie board that is currently offered on Crowd Supply for $80.
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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Not very useful, I’d say. This is just an analog transceiver module with microphone and speaker, connected to an ESP32.
What’s missing is an audio codec for the ESP32, to implement digital voice modes.
As it is, you could as well just buy a cheap Baofeng radio.
I’m pretty sure you have the modules labeled wrong in the picture. The shorter antenna model on the left is likely the UHF and the longer antenna module on the right is VHF.
You’re right it should be that way, but on Aliexpres the shorter antenna is for VHF.
I wonder if they just mislabeled it there?
No. These aren’t 1/4 wavelength antennas as wenst you might expect. Electrical behaviour for vhf will likely be 1/4, for UHF 3/4 wavelength
If the ESP32 is in the audio path, these could be very interesting as various voice codecs could be implemented on the ESP and a variety of modulations could be used as well. That depends a lot on how the link to the transmitter works–I’m not familiar with this module, so I don’t know how flexable it is. The price is a bit high, but I guess volume might help bring that down if these become more popular with the amateur radio crowd.
Usually the regulator only allows analog voice in those frequency bands. So I guess the esp is just for tuning, maximum maybe for selcall?
I only know the rules well for my country (USA) and we don’t have those limitations–neither for Amateur or professional services.
tuning, UI, selcall (CTCSS, DCS, etc.), maybe some APRS kind of functionality? An ESP32 is plenty fast to decode/encode all of that by hand.
I thought it was PMR, but yepp in the UHF ISM band you can do whatever you feel like, mode wise
Yes, the ‘citizens bands’ often have very strict requirements for power, antenna, modulation, etc. Makes sense. If you know what you’re doing enough to make better decisions, you should just become a professional or an amateur.
Well in fact i am holding a ham license but not very active, did a lot of commercial SATCOM and gsm stuff in the past, but currently out of RF
Sorry, I didn’t mean you specifically. I guess I should have formally written it as “If one knows what one is doing enough to make better decisions, one should just become a professional or an amateur”, but that sounds so incredibly pretentious. Sorry for the confusion, English is an evolving language, please don’t mind the construction debris.
Don’t worry I wasn’t offended, you can’t know my background (well now you do 😃)
ESP is not connected to the audio circuit. Much less useful product.
If that’s so, then I agree, it’s much less useful. If the ESP32 was in the audio path, I’d see a use for this as a network attached amateur radio transceiver. I’d love to be able to operate local repeaters from anywhere in my house by using whatever device I had handy that has audio in/out and wifi. I can RX easily with RTL_SDR, but TX is another matter. I know there’s a lot of simple SDR TX, but I haven’t really looked into them. Maybe I should.
Else could do codec2
So I have a question. Using this product could I receive textual data from Wi-Fi and send it out over the radio using analog voice? Essentially creating a notification system that since now has been over SMS?
Others are saying the audio part and the ESP32 are not connected in the LILYGO T-TWR board so it may not be possible to do what you want.
The SOROCAD32 board mentioned at the bottom of the article has the ability to send and receive data through an “SMS exchange” feature.
According to this schematic
https://github.com/Xinyuan-LilyGO/T-TWR/blob/master/schematic/T-TWR-Plus_Rev2.0.pdf
ESP is connected both to speaker and mic
MIC to IO18
Audio to IO1
It would be good if the I-PEX RF Connector was standard on all ESP boards. This would give the opportunity to increase the range of modules. Now you need to cut the antenna and solder the wire with the socket.
What’s missing is an audio codec for the ESP32, to implement digital voice modes.