A feature-rich weather dashboard and photo display for the M5Stack PaperColor (ESP32-S3R8, ACeP 6-colour e-paper, 400×600px). Built as a low-power companion display to the Tab5 Observatory dashboard.
4 display pages — navigated via hardware buttons A/B:
| Page | Description |
|---|---|
| 1 — Dashboard | Current weather, indoor temp/humidity, UV index, rain chance, 3-day forecast, moon phase + AQI strip |
| 2 — Hourly Graph | Temperature curve + rain bars for 06:00–22:00, wind/pressure/visibility stats |
| 3 — Calendar | Month calendar with today highlighted, outdoor + indoor conditions header |
| 4 — Photo | Full-screen photo display from SD card with slideshow mode |
Web UI (press Button C) — full browser-based control panel at http://<device-ip>:
- Live sensor readings and history charts with time range filters (1hr → 90 days)
- Photo library — upload, display, delete, and slideshow control
- Wake schedule editor
- Full RGB LED control (solid, pulse, flash, rainbow, status-driven)
- Display preview via screenshot endpoint
- Manual sensor readings logged to SD
Smart sleep/wake cycle — wakes at scheduled times, fetches weather, renders, sleeps. Target battery life: weeks on a 1250 mAh cell at 1-hour intervals.
| Component | Detail |
|---|---|
| MCU | ESP32-S3R8 — 240 MHz dual-core |
| Display | 4" ACeP / Spectra 6 e-paper, 400×600, 6 colours |
| Colours | Black, White, Red, Yellow, Green, Blue — no true orange |
| RTC | RX8130CE |
| Temp/Humidity | SHT40 onboard sensor |
| Power IC | M5PM1 (I2C address 0x6E) |
| RGB LEDs | 2× WS2812B on GPIO21 |
| SD Card | microSD — CS=47, SCK=15, MOSI=13, MISO=14 |
| Battery | 1250 mAh LiPo |
⚠️ M5GFX and M5Unified must be installed from GitHub ZIP — the Library Manager versions do not support the PaperColor board target and the display will report 0×0.
| Library | Version | Install |
|---|---|---|
| Board Manager | M5Stack >= 3.2.7, target: M5PaperColor | Arduino Board Manager |
| M5Unified | >= 0.2.17 | GitHub ZIP |
| M5GFX | >= 0.2.22 | GitHub ZIP |
| M5PM1 | latest | Library Manager or GitHub |
| M5UnitENV | latest | Library Manager |
| ArduinoJson | v6.x | Library Manager |
| Adafruit NeoPixel | >= 1.15.4 | Library Manager |
Create a config.h file in the sketch folder alongside the .ino file. Do not commit this file — add it to .gitignore.
#pragma once
#define WIFI_SSID "your_wifi_ssid"
#define WIFI_PASSWORD "your_wifi_password"
#define WEATHER_API_KEY "your_weatherapi_key" // https://www.weatherapi.comThe weather endpoint is set in the sketch to fetch Sydney, Australia. Change the q=Sydney parameter in WEATHER_URL for a different location.
| Source | Used for |
|---|---|
| WeatherAPI.com | Current conditions, 3-day forecast, hourly data, astronomy, AQI |
| SHT40 onboard sensor | Indoor temperature and humidity |
SD card /sensors/log.csv |
Sensor history (up to 720 entries, ~90 days) |
SD card /photos/*.bmp |
Photo slideshow |
WeatherAPI free tier is sufficient. The sketch uses the forecast.json endpoint with aqi=yes.
The sketch creates two directories on first boot:
/photos/— uploaded photos saved as 24-bit BMP (400×600)/sensors/—log.csvwith timestamped temperature, humidity, and battery readings
Photos are uploaded through the web UI — the browser handles resizing, cropping, and Floyd-Steinberg dithering to the 6-colour hardware palette before sending to the device.
Press Button C to enter web mode. The display shows the device IP address. Open http://<ip> in any browser on the same network. Press Button C again to exit.
The web UI includes six tabs:
- Dashboard — live readings, battery status, WiFi signal, SD card status
- Sensors — temperature/humidity/battery charts with 1hr/8hr/24hr/7d/30d/90d range chips, Take Reading button
- Schedule — configure wake hours and interval
- Settings — set default page (1–4) with live display preview, LED quick controls
- Photo — upload images, view/display/delete photos on SD, start/stop slideshow with interval selector
- LEDs — full RGB LED control with 6 modes and colour picker
POST routes that trigger a display render (
/api/page,/api/refresh,/api/photos/display) block until the ACeP panel finishes refreshing (~25 seconds) before responding. This is expected.
| Button | Normal mode | Web mode |
|---|---|---|
| A (GPIO10) | Previous page (wraps 4→1) | — |
| B (GPIO9) | Next page (wraps 1→4) | — |
| C (GPIO1) | Enter web mode | Exit web mode |
| Power | Double-click to wake from deep sleep | — |
The device uses M5PM1-based deep sleep (pm1.timerSet() + pm1.shutdown()). M5.Power.timerSleep() is unreliable on this hardware.
| Mode | Behaviour |
|---|---|
| Weather pages (1–3) | Sleeps until next scheduled wake slot |
| Photo mode, slideshow off | Stays awake indefinitely |
| Photo mode, slideshow on | Sleeps for the slide interval between photos |
The default schedule wakes every hour from 06:00–20:00 AEST. Configurable via web UI.
The two WS2812B LEDs show boot progress in Status mode (default):
| Colour | Phase |
|---|---|
| Blue | Booting |
| Amber | Connecting to WiFi |
| Green | Fetching weather |
| White | Rendering to display |
| Bright blue | Web mode active |
| Off | Sleeping |
LED mode can be changed to solid, pulse, flash, or rainbow via the web UI.
The hardware panel renders exactly 6 colours. All other RGB values are quantised to the nearest palette colour — subtle tints and gradients will not render as expected.
| Colour | RGB565 | Hex |
|---|---|---|
| Red | 0xC900 |
#CC2200 |
| Yellow | 0xCC40 |
#CC8900 |
| Green | 0x1B45 |
#1A6B2A |
| Blue | 0x12B9 |
#1155CC |
| Black | 0x18C3 |
#1A1A1A |
| White | 0xFFFF |
#FFFFFF |
Every display refresh takes ~25 seconds regardless of the epd_mode setting.
PaperColor_WeatherDash/
├── PaperColor_WeatherDash.ino # Main sketch (~3800 lines)
├── config.h # WiFi + API credentials (not committed)
└── README.md
- Built for the M5Stack PaperColor
- Weather data from WeatherAPI.com
- Companion project to the Tab5 Observatory dashboard
- Location: Sydney, Australia (Fort Denison / AEST)
MIT — free to use, modify, and distribute. Not affiliated with M5Stack or WeatherAPI.