T-Panel S3 ESPHome Touchscreen Home Automation Display
ESPHome configuration for the LILYGO T-Panel S3 dual-chip (ESP32-S3 + ESP32-H2) wall panel that drives the 4-inch 480×480 touchscreen, backlight control, and capacitive touch input for a custom Home Assistant dashboard.
Overview
This community project brings ESPHome support to the LILYGO T-Panel S3, a 4-inch wall-panel board combining an ESP32-S3 (display and WiFi) with an ESP32-H2 (Zigbee/Thread/Matter radio). The ESP32-S3 side runs ESPHome with a custom ST7701S RGB panel driver and CST3240 capacitive touchscreen, enabling a fully interactive Home Assistant display panel.
Features
The ESPHome firmware configures the 480×480 IPS RGB display via the ST7701S controller and SPI+RGB interface, with an XL9535 I/O expander managing the SPI and power pins. Backlight PWM dimming (0–100%) is exposed as a light entity in Home Assistant, allowing brightness automation based on time-of-day or ambient light.
Capacitive touch input via the CST3240 controller at I2C address 0x1A enables tap-to-activate interactions on the display. The board's RS-485 interface is also available for connecting industrial sensors or controlling building systems over Modbus.
The ESP32-H2 co-processor supports Zigbee, Thread, and Matter natively — enabling future integration as a Zigbee coordinator or Matter bridge alongside the display panel, all in a single device mounted in a standard wall box.
Getting Started
Use the community ESPHome configuration thread on the Home Assistant forum as the primary reference. The configuration requires ESP-IDF framework (not Arduino) for proper RGB panel support. Flash via USB-C and adopt through the ESPHome dashboard — subsequent updates are OTA.
