LILYGO’s latest e-paper development board pairs an ESP32-S3 with a 4.7-inch display offering 960 × 540 resolution and 16-level grayscale. The board also includes battery monitoring, removable storage, and Wi-Fi and BLE connectivity for portable information displays and wireless embedded projects.

The board is powered by an ESP32-S3 microcontroller with a dual-core Xtensa LX7 processor operating at up to 240MHz, alongside 16MB of flash memory and 8MB of PSRAM. Integrated 2.4GHz Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Low Energy enable wireless communication, allowing applications to retrieve remote data and update display content.

T5 e-Paper Basic front and rear views

The board employs a 4.7-inch ED047TC1 e-paper display with 960 × 540 resolution and 16 grayscale levels. An 8-bit parallel interface connects the panel to the ESP32-S3, with dedicated signals for display timing and power control. The reflective display maintains visible content without continuous power, supporting applications with infrequent screen updates.

The ED047TC1 panel is also found in the recently covered M5Stack PaperDIY Assembly Kit, which also uses a 4.7-inch grayscale display and ESP32-S3 processor. However, the LILYGO board takes a different approach to peripheral integration, incorporating an I/O expander and dedicated battery monitoring hardware rather than the M5Stack design’s FPC expansion connectors and M5PM1 power management chip.

T5 e-Paper Basic multiple views

Additional hardware includes a microSD card slot connected through SPI, an XL9555 I/O expander, and an AXP2602 battery fuel gauge. Both chips communicate over I2C, with the XL9555 managing peripheral inputs, including five user buttons. The AXP2602 monitors battery voltage, current, state of charge, and battery health.

The T5 e-Paper Basic also carries dedicated BOOT and RESET buttons, a USB Type-C interface for power and programming, and connections for a single-cell lithium battery. The ESP32-S3 manages the display power and boost-enable signals through GPIO45 and GPIO46, allowing firmware to control the e-paper circuitry as needed.

T5 e-Paper Basic package contents

On the software side, LILYGO maintains a PlatformIO project for Visual Studio Code, incorporating the M5GFX graphics library for display rendering and SensorLib for communicating with the AXP2602 and XL9555 devices. Arduino IDE development is also possible using equivalent ESP32-S3 board settings, although PlatformIO remains the recommended development environment.

T5 e-Paper Basic pinout

The accompanying GitHub repository contains examples covering e-paper rendering, grayscale patterns, SD card operations, Wi-Fi scanning, and battery monitoring. A factory-test application checks the display, buttons, storage, wireless connectivity, and battery gauge, while an employee badge demonstration illustrates how the panel can present identification details, graphics, and QR codes.

Further Information

The LILYGO T5 e-Paper Basic is listed for $34.04 on the LILYGO website.