The vPlayer is an ESP32-S3 touchscreen video display that can be used for continuous MJPEG video playback from a microSD card. It features a 280 x 240 1.69-inch smartwatch-sized touchscreen display with backlight control and also offers expansion options via JST SH/SR connectors (UART, I2C, and I2S audio), and additional I/O pads on the PCB. All these features also make it suitable for applications such as weather displays, live traffic cameras, computer stats monitors, wildlife cameras, and fetching data from the Internet.
vPlayer specifications:
- SoC – Espressif ESP32-S3
- CPU – Dual-core 32-bit microcontroller @ 240MHz
- Memory and Storage – 4MB Flash and 2MB PSRAM
- Wireless – WiFi 4, Bluetooth 5.0
- Storage – MicroSD card slot via MMC 4-bit interface
- Display – 1.69-inch touchscreen (280×240) P169H002-CTP TFT LCD
- ST7789V2 single-chip controller/driver
- CST816 touch controller
- Backlight control
- USB – 1x USB-C for power and data transfer
- Expansion
- JST SH/SR 1mm connectors for UART, I2C, I2S (audio), and SPI
- Spare IO pads for custom expansion
The vPlayer is programmed using the Arduino IDE and ESP32 Core Version 2.0.14 (although newer versions should work). The ESP32-S3 touchscreen video display can only play .mjpeg files, so you will need to install the maker’s custom video converter tool for either Windows or Mac. After converting, the .mjpeg can copied to the vPlayer’s SD card for continuous playback. The device is open-source, with a work-in-progress GitHub repository with firmware and software files, and the documentation provides more information including a link to the video convertor tool.
We have seen other ESP32-S3-based touchscreen displays from Waveshare and LILYGO, including the Waveshare ESP32-S3 1.69-inch touch display, Waveshare ESP32-S3-AMOLED-1.91 board, LILYGO T-Display S3 Pro, and the LILYGO T-HMI. The vPlayer is not that different, but the aforementioned displays often have only basic demos, while vPlayer’s developer has already released the Continuous video player demo with Arduino code and documentation, and has already coded other demos such as a weather display, a live traffic camera display, computer control/monitor, and local ESP32-CAM monitor. It’s just not clear why those haven’t been released or documented yet.
The vPlayer is priced at $47 on Tindie with an enclosure and a microSD card preloaded with a motion jpeg video.
Tomisin is a writer specializing in hardware product reviews, comparisons, and explainers. He is very passionate about small form factor and single-board computers.
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