I took
@steveruizok's advice & got an ESP32!
So much fun for ~$55.
I programmed it to display live stats from my online radio station, and use the built-in mic to transcribe and send messages in the station's chat :)
Here's everything I bought & how it works:
- Waveshare ESP32-S3 1.54" e-Paper AIoT board ($30) - Wi-Fi, mics, speaker, battery charging built in
- 3.7V 500mAh LiPo ($10)
- JST 1.25 connector adapters ($15 for 20)
- ESP32-S3 polls my radio's API over Wi-Fi every 20s → renders a "broadcast console" UI on the 200×200 e-paper
- Hold-to-talk: dual mics record → WAV upload → server transcribes w/
@OpenAI → posts to the live chat via websocket, pinned as the station owner (API-key auth)
- Backend is my
@WaspLang app (React/Node/Prisma) on
@Railway over 3 tiny endpoints: /status, /chat, /voice-chat
- Firmware: PlatformIO + Arduino, GxEPD2 for the display, Waveshare's ES8311 codec drivers for the mic - Runs on battery, fully standalone
Built the whole thing in a morning w Claude Fable 5. server endpoints, firmware. A really cool bit was mocking up possible UIs for the esp32 e-paper display using
@claudeai's artifacts.
Check out my mixes/shows at
HOTTOWN.MUSIC