Last December, Debashis wrote about the Waveshare Double Eye LCD module comprised of two round displays that can be useful for robotics or art projects since they can be made to look like googly eyes. The module is designed to be connected to a host MCU via an SPI interface.
The TouchEye looks similar but offers larger 1.28-inch round displays (instead of 0.71-inch), and also adds a touch function. Instead of being connected to a host MCU via SPI like the Waveshare model, the TouchEye dual touch display module is a complete board with an onboard MCU that can be either a Raspberry Pi RP2040 or an Espressif ESP32-S3 that also offers WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity. Both boards also feature a USB-C port for power and programming, a microSD card slot, a GPIO breakout connector, and programmable buttons.
TouchEye module specifications:
- MCU (one or the other)
- Raspberry Pi RP2040 dual-core Cortex-M0+ microcontroller @ up to 133 MHz with 264KB SRAM
- Espressif ESP32-S3 dual-core LX7 microcontroller @ 240MHz with vector instructions, 512KB SRAM, WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 5.x connectivity (all that through ESP32-S3-WROOM-1 module)
- Storage – MicroSD card slot for data logging & media storage
- Displays – 2x 1.28-inch round touch color displays with 240×240 resolution
- USB – 1x USB Type-C port for power and programming (MCU versions)
- Expansion – GPIO breakout connector
- Misc
- Reset and Button button
- 2x programmable buttons
- Power and Charging LEDs
- Power Supply
- 5V via USB-C port
- 2-pin battery connector
- Dimensions – It’s complicated and the company only says “compact and lightweight design”
While the crowdfunding campaign has been launched by Vandana Singh, it’s just another project by SB Components. That means there’s no documentation, source code, or other resource available until the Kickstarter campaign is over. This time around they did not even mention which framework they used for programming, but we can expect Arduino and/or MicroPython. You can check out their GitHub account and previous projects to better understand what to expect once you get the board.
What we do have is a demo of the TouchEye dual touch round display module showing its capabilities.
Both the TouchEye ESP32-S3 and RP2040 dual touch display modules go for about $62 on Kickstarter, at least for the super early bird rewards, and once all those are taken, the early bird price kicks in at $70. Shipping further adds 5 GBP to the UK, and about $19 to the rest of the world. For reference, the Double Eye display mentioned in the introduction, with smaller round displays without touch and no on-board MCU, sells for about $13 on AliExpress and $20 on Amazon. While the TouchEye ought to be more expensive with the extra features, the price difference is bigger than I had expected. Backers of the TouchEye modules should expect their rewards to ship by June 2025.
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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