ESPHome + Waveshare 2.9inv2 e-ink display + partial refresh = flicker/artifacts?

ESPHome
1

Hi, I have tried this display on a Wemos D1 Mini Esp32. It works fine as long as I set it to full refresh every x seconds. If I try partial refresh the screen flickers with noise and the resulting image is garbage with missing pixels. As I want to use it for a generic info display where there is not a lot of change (temperatures, humidity, etc.) this is not a very big deal as I can set the full refresh to 10min or even longer. But still annoying to see the screen flash when it is performed…
Any ideas how to remediate this?

2

Do you have any update on this issue? I just got this display and I’m facing the same problem.
Setting full_update_every to anything higher than 1 produces noise.

3

Nope, the display currently gathers dust in the drawer… I have to reactivate it sometimes. There were several updates to ESPhome in the meantime, disappointing to hear that you are still facing the issue

4

I found to open issues on this topic:

But apparently no one is able to fix this. I think at least the documentation (Waveshare E-Paper Display — ESPHome) should be updated and the 2.9inv2 should be removed from the ‘full_update_every’ option as long as it is not working.

5

Hey everyone, do i get this right that as long as I want to stick to esphome, the only way to run an e-ink display is (at least at the moment) to have the whole screen “blink”/flash everytime I want to update anything on the screen? At least when I need a decent screen size, as the only other screen that supports partial refresh (and doesn’t cost a fortune) is the 1.54 inch version from what I found when comparing supported screens (Waveshare E-Paper Display — ESPHome) with available models that support partial refresh (“Selection guide” at the bottom of 200x200, 1.54inch E-Ink display module, SPI interface | HINK-E0154A05 WFC0000CZ07).

Well, let’s hope the fix gets finally published soon :-/

6

I’ve had the same issue. @Lakini I don’t know of a way to make it partial refresh in home assistant. I’m just going to use a full refresh and slow down the refresh rate of my display (maybe every 45-60s) and see how long it lasts.

7

Looks like still (!) an issue?

Did fix things to use:
full_update_every: 1

The below code works, but flickers the display to update every 10 seconds

display:

- platform: waveshare_epaper

model: 2.90inV2

cs_pin: 7 # CS (Chip Select) - Blue / Orange

dc_pin: 1 # D/C (Data/Command) - White / Green

busy_pin: 3 # BUSY (Busy signal) - Purple / Purple

reset_pin: 2 # RES (Reset) - Orange / White

rotation: 270

full_update_every: 1

update_interval: 10s

id: adam_epaper1

lambda: |-

ESP_LOGD("display", "Printing: Hello Adam...");

it.printf(10, 10, id(roboto_16), TextAlign::BASELINE_LEFT, "Hello Adam!");
8

I’ve tried it again a couple of weeks ago and now it works without flickering. Seems that leaving out the update_interval and just do a full update every 1h/3600s did the trick. I use this as a display to display my kids progress with their OralB Bluetooth toothbrushes where the progress is shown as a horizontal bar. Drawing that and also resetting it to 0 works without artifacts. So it seems the update_interval isn’t necessary. And as far as I have seen the full_update_every doesn’t cause flickering either.

display:
  - platform: waveshare_epaper
    cs_pin: GPIO21
    dc_pin: GPIO17
    busy_pin: GPIO16
    reset_pin: GPIO18
    rotation: 90°
    model: 2.90inv2-r2
    full_update_every: 3600
9

Hi

I’m planning to buy one. Could you please clarify which model are you using with the working code (model: 2.90inv2-r2)?

  1. The flexible one: 296×128, 2.9inch e-Paper, flexible E-Ink raw display, black/white dual-color, SPI interface, without PCB
  2. The non flexible one: 296x128, 2.9inch E-Ink raw display, SPI interface, without PCB | E029A01-FPCA-V2.0 E029A01-FPC-A1

Thank you in advance.

10

Having spent more time (now countless hours) trying to get ePaper/ESPHome working, I now have no idea what my point was, above.

My Waveshare 2.9" black and white ePaper will flicker for 6 seconds every time it refreshes. I told it to refresh every 10 seconds. So, it was flickering almost the whole time. I understand that now.

Thanks for your note all the same, Markus.

Regarding

full_update_every: 3600

It says here

“you have the option to only do a full-redraw every x-th time using this option”

So, your config will do a full update every 3600 refreshes, not every 3600 seconds?

Maybe partial updates are now working better than you thought? :sweat_smile:

Great project for teeth tracking, tho

11

tbh. I have experimented with so many settings over the span of a few years now, digging the display out of a drawer every couple of months.
My last try did work with these settings without flickering - so I left it as it is :smiley:
And as I’m no programmer I mostly throw settings against a wall and using code snippets I find and see what works by trial&error :smiley:

1 Like
12

I’ve used this:

LOL - bought it in July of 2021… this was really a long project for me :smiley:

1 Like