3D Printer Monitoring With An ESP32 Smartwatch And Octoprint API | Voltlog #320

Welcome to a new Voltlog, in this video I’m gonna show you how I built this project where an ESP32 based smart wristband allows me to track the progress of my 3D printer in real time. So I thought about how I could solve this problem and I came up with a project where I’m using a LILYGO T-Wristband which is basically an ESP32 development platform built into this smart bracelet form factor. The bracelet connects via Wifi to the local network where Octoprint runs and manages the 3d printer.

LILYGO T-Wristband ESP32 Smart Watch Development Platform | Voltlog #316

Wearables have always been this cool niche of electronics, people have always been building electronic projects meant to be worn by the user and over the years we’ve seen a lot of nice ideas of watches and other types of bracelets but there’s always been the issue of the enclosure and form factor.

Most of these projects were only some stacked PCBs with no enclosure and those that had an enclosure were usually not easy to build with common tools. The 3D printing revolution kinda solved that but not entirely because 3d printing at that lower scale is difficult and results are often not waterproof or dustproof.

And here comes the gadget i want to show you today, this is smart bracelet, it’s called a T-Wristband from LILYGO and I somehow feel like this is the result of the smart bracelet boom we’ve had in the past years which pushed the industry forward and you can now get something like this manufactured for cheap.

This is based on the ESP32 Pico D4 so it has built-in Wifi and Bluetooth because of that. It’s got an IPS 0.96inch screen, an RTC for keeping the clock accurate, it’s the PCF8563. A touch button for user input with that special defined area moulded in the case, this is handled by a dedicated touch IC the TTP223. An inertial measurement unit the MPU9250 which combines an accelerometer, gyro and magnetometer. A built-in 80mAh lipo battery and a TP4054 charger. There is also a window for a heart rate sensor on the back but there isn’t one fitted So the specs are not bad at all considering the hardware there is a bunch of projects you can build on this hardware.