I’ve now got this display running correctly on my M5Stick-C, including colors. However, I had to make some modifications to the C++ and python code to get it working. I’ve opened an issue to see if the maintainer will make the same needed changes (or equivalent) so it will be simple to use the M5Stick-C.
@MisterTFM Once you solve your axp192 problem, you should be able to use the display with either white-on-black or black-on-white with the current esphome release (1.16.2). To get other colors is a little more trouble, and the colors will show up incorrectly on the M5Stick-C until the issue is resolved.
But, if you would like to use some pre-defined colors (the sample config uses white, red, and blue), you could use some of the definitions that I have created. Read about them here: Here are some color definitions for use with ESPhome
The invert parameter doesn’t exist in the ESPhome release, but it’s needed to make the colors correct. The usbgr parameter is in the ESPhome release, but it’s not documented as far as I could find.
From what I’ve seen in the st7735 component in the dev branch, there will be some spelling changes for some of the parameters at some point in the future.
SOLVED: Got all my errors resolved when compiling my *.yaml file using ESPhome, that includes missing axp192, st7735 and lamda.
NOW I need some help setting up a new M5Stickc to be used with ESPhome. I can connect to it via USB cable and download examples using Arduino, but not sure what the next step is to compile and upload from HA using ESPHome.
I tried downloading *.bin file using ESPHome-Flasher 1.3.0, but also got an error. I’m guessing the USB 2.0 port on my computer might not be able to go at the fast baud rate that ESPHome-flasher uses:
Using ‘COM4’ as serial port.
Connecting…
Detecting chip type… ESP32
Connecting…
Chip Info:
Chip Family: ESP32
Chip Model: ESP32-PICO-D4 (revision 1)
Number of Cores: 2
Max CPU Frequency: 240MHz
Has Bluetooth: YES
Has Embedded Flash: YES
Has Factory-Calibrated ADC: YES
MAC Address: 94:B9:7E:8D:92:28
Uploading stub…
Running stub…
Stub running…
Changing baud rate to 460800
Changed.
Unexpected error: Reading chip details failed: Timed out waiting for packet header.
UPDATE: (2/28/21)
I reverted to another flasher, NODEMCU PyFlasher and am able to download *.bin files from the ESPHome complilations. However I can’t then download OTA from ESPHome the very same file:
ERROR Connecting to 192.168.1.230:3232 failed: timed out
If I download a WiFi test program using Arduino, I can then see the M5Stickc on my router, and can PING the address and get a valid response.
I’m trying to get this to work and the first time I tried to compile it files display.py had an error about importing st773_ns. But the code below worked
I’m not sure, but I think theoretically that it’s possible via esphome.
By coincidence, I was recently trying to figure out how to do it with C++ code outside of esphome. For most TFT displays, you would use PWM on the backlight pin to affect the brightness. esphome provides the “ledc” component for doing that with the ESP32 native LEDC PWM capability.
However, in the M5Stick-C, the backlight is not wired to an ESP32 pin. Instead, it’s controlled by a pin on the AXP192 (the power controller). I haven’t yet figured out if there is more available than simply on/off. The AXP192 is interfaced to the ESP32 as an I2C device, and esphome has lots of support for I2C.
There is a datasheet for the AXP192 available here on the manufacturer’s site: http://www.x-powers.com/en.php/Info/product_detail/article_id/29. It’s 53 pages, so lots of detail. But it’s also mostly in Chinese, so I’m not really sure about most of those details.
I just had another look at the Water Leak Detector project, which uses an M5StickC and esphome. The YAML only describes sensing the battery level, but the code is their custom component for AXP192 does have a control for display brightness.
I only looked at the code just now. I didn’t try any experiments, but there’s a reasonable chance it works (at least in native C++ code … how to interface to esphome? dunno).
I had a chance to experiment with brightness via M5’s arduino library for the M5StickC. They provide an AXP192 method for setting the brightness. (It’s called DisplayBreath(). Beats me why.) It sets the appropriate register values in the AXP192 to control the voltage supplied to the ST7735 backlight.
Although it’s a 4-bit value in the AXP192, giving 16 levels, the API limits the value to a maximum of 12. Anything higher is reduced to 12. I suppose that has something to do with the voltages that the display will tolerate, but that’s just a guess.
On my particular M5StickC, I could not see anything on the display with a value of 7 or below. It was completely dark to my human eyeballs.
So, the usable range of values is 8 - 12. There was a very noticeable difference at each step in that range.
I was updating the code for one of my m5stick-c’s and got this error
/status_binary_sensor.cpp.o
src/esphome/components/st7735/st7735.cpp: In member function 'virtual void esphome::st7735::ST7735::draw_absolute_pixel_internal(int, int, esphome::Color)':
src/esphome/components/st7735/st7735.cpp:275:25: error: 'struct esphome::Color' has no member named 'to_rgb_565'
auto color565 = color.to_rgb_565();
^
*** [/data/hotwater_heater_leak_sensor/.pioenvs/hotwater_heater_leak_sensor/src/esphome/components/st7735/st7735.cpp.o] Error 1
========================= [FAILED] Took 56.04 seconds =========================
I can get my yaml to compile but the upload fails on the “auto color565 = color.to_rgb_565();” I thought I saw a fix for this but cannot find it anymore. Anyone?
