I wanted to share a little project I’ve been working on for the Ulanzi TC001 pixel clock. I know many of you are using AWTRIX, which is great - but I had a different use case and thought others might find this useful too.
I needed a portable API monitor for trade shows and markets - places where I’m on public WiFi and can’t run an external server. AWTRIX requires a server to POST data to the device, which wasn’t going to work for my situation.
What This Firmware Does
Instead of receiving data pushed from a server, the TC001 polls APIs directly. Point it at any REST API that returns JSON, tell it which value to extract, and it displays it. That’s basically it.
Direct API polling (no Home Assistant or external server needed)
Works on any WiFi including public networks
Configurable polling intervals (5 seconds to 1 hour)
Custom 8x8 icon with a visual editor
Scrolling or static display mode
Auto-brightness using the onboard light sensor
Battery monitoring with low battery alerts
Web-based configuration interface
Example Use Cases
Support ticket counts
Social media follower counts
Crypto prices (Binance API works out of the box)
IoT sensor reading
Anything with a JSON API really
This is my first real public GitHub project, so I’d genuinely appreciate any feedback - whether it’s on the code, documentation, or just general usability. If anyone has a spare TC001 and wants to give it a test, I’d love to hear how it goes!
Happy to answer any questions. And if you’re happy with AWTRIX, stick with it - this is just an alternative for a specific use case.
Does this do weather as well? What I’m looking for is to mainly use time, YouTube sub count and weather. The problem with the original Ulanzi firmware is that the weather only works for locations in china. I’m currently in the U.S. and would absolutely love a weather option. Thank you!
Edit: I installed the firmware but quickly uninstalled it. I assumed all these features were already built in. I’m kind of dumb when it comes to doing this stuff. is it possible to release a firmware with these features already inside the firmware just like the original Ulanzi TC001 firmware?
I built this firmware to fill a gap that I needed initially.
I was hoping that the github readme was super clear on what it currently can and cannot do but maybe the limitation of just displaying one metric was not clear enough… I will update the docs accordingly
If you are using Home Assistant and just need the pixel display to be on your local network then have you taken a look at the AWTRIX firmware?
Right now it’s doing exactly what I need for me but I do have ideas for implementing a “multi page” config so that it can cycle through “pages” showing additional information like time, weather etc.
I hope you can make some time to log some of your feature requests in the Discussions area of my repository?
