Ghost Pixel Lab

Pocket AMOLED playground for the Waveshare ESP32-S3-Touch-AMOLED-1.8: a tiny app engine (touch launcher, double-buffered DMA renderer, sound mixer with MP3, storage, Wi-Fi/BLE) plus a growing pile of experiments. Modern C++.

Hardware

Part	Role
ESP32-S3R8	240 MHz, 8 MB octal PSRAM, 16 MB flash, Wi-Fi 4 + BLE 5
SH8601	1.8" AMOLED, 368 × 448, QSPI
FT3168	capacitive touch
QMI8658	6-axis IMU (gyro + accelerometer)
ES8311	mono audio codec + on-board speaker + MEMS microphone
AXP2101	power management, LiPo charging + battery telemetry
PCF85063	RTC with backup-battery pads
TCA9554	8-bit I/O expander (drives LCD / TP reset internally)

Product page: https://www.waveshare.com/esp32-s3-touch-amoled-1.8.htm

Apps

Boots into a touch launcher; every experiment is one small app class. Currently on board: Outer Pixels (Outer-Wilds-style space sim — fly between orbiting planets and drop onto a voxel surface), Cube 3D (IMU wireframe), Sensor Lab (hardware dashboard), Echo (mic → speaker), Piano (touch synth), Sand (falling sand + tilt), Maze Ball, Level (spirit level), Music (MP3 from flash & SD), WiFi Scan, Pad Lab (Xbox controller over BLE, incl. rumble).

Tap to launch — BOOT key or a swipe from the top edge goes back, the PWR key cycles brightness.

Outer Pixels

The headline app: an Outer-Wilds-style space sim (no 3D engine). Fly a 6-DOF ship between orbiting planets with the Xbox pad; drop low and it switches to a Comanche-style voxel terrain you fly through — procedural, generated in the background so it's seamless.

Build & flash

Requires PlatformIO.

pio run -t upload      # build + flash
pio run -t uploadfs    # flash the data/ folder (assets, mp3s)
pio device monitor     # serial @ 115200

Layout

src/
  main.cpp      # composition root: board init + app registration
  core/         # engine: App interface, manager, menu, sound mixer
  apps/         # one file pair per experiment
  board/        # hardware modules (display, imu, touch, audio, storage, ...)
data/           # assets packed into LittleFS
docs/           # developer guide

Documentation

How to write an app, the engine APIs, code examples for sound/MP3, sprites, storage, Wi-Fi/BLE, buttons, configuration and performance — all in the Developer Guide.

Status

Sandbox repo. Things change, demos get replaced, APIs are not stable.