10/5/2025 - Learned about what CYDs are and what they are capable of.

Cheap Yellow Displays, or CYDs, are cheap ESP32-powered touch screens with a ton of awesome features, such as WiFi and Bluetooth. Found them in this YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5fd6wm8f14&t=242s. I learned more about them here: https://github.com/witnessmenow/ESP32-Cheap-Yellow-Display. Scrolled through some Reddit posts, and found that they are super reliable, with some Redditors saying they have been using them for more than one year. Watched this YT video at 2x speed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agfuTNZGGl4.

I actually love this so much. I could make this into a macropad, a Spotify Car Thing clone, a weather display, a handheld gaming device, and so much more! But first, I think I'll make a smart pill organizer for the Congressional App Challenge.

10/6/2025 - Began CAD + Ordered Parts

I have decided to buy the https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C4KSKW96. It uses capacitive touch, which seems like it's wayyyyy better than capacitive touch. I found this: https://www.printables.com/model/739905-cyd-35-case-esp32-3248s035/, but extended it a little bit to make sure the speaker fits. Speaking of the speaker, I chose this one: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0826551ZZ, because it can fit inside the case.

When I get the parts, I'll probably add branding to the CAD and customize it more.

10/7/2025 - Recieved the goods but ts doesn't work

I received the package. I thought getting Hello World to show up would be super easy. I WAS SOOOO WRONG. I tried and tried and tried and can't get anything to work. I've switched libraries, watched like a bajillion tutorials, but NOTHING works. The only thing I got to work is this Marauder thingy... its basically a Flipper Zero. The display clearly works, but my code just doesn't. https://github.com/Fr4nkFletcher/ESP32-Marauder-Cheap-Yellow-Display

10/9/2025 - Another day, another failure

I TRIED SO LONG TO GET TS TO WORK AND IT JUST WONT. I installed a bunch of libraries, found myself literally EDITING THE LIBRARY SOURCE CODE to get ts to work, but nothing would work. I'm actually so sad... however, it seems like someone has used the same display as me, but they used this weird thing called PlatformIO. Guess we are switching to that next.

10/10/2025 11 AM - omg omg omg IT JUST WORKED

Switching to platformio WORKED!!!! It takes forever to compile and initialize, but after loads of ChatGPTing, it worked!

IMG_1268.HEIC

10/10/2025 3 PM - Designed a basic UI

Designed this pretty decent UI. The text used to be almost unreadable, but with anti-aliasing, it worked! I also got the speaker to work. Turns out to add the pill feature, I'm going to need a RTC. I'll try using the WiFi feature to get the time from an API, so maybe I can make it work?

10/18/2025 - Worked on the firmware

So... turns out this display is kind of broken. It outputs green instead of red. oh well. I spent a lot of time (and a lot of ChatGPT debugging) to get this okay looking UI. I was trying to use containers, but they wouldn't work. So, it looks pretty weird... oh well.