Abstract

SPI display connected to an ESP32-S3. In 5-second intervals, the device polls the Spotify API, checking if a song is currently playing. If a song is playing, the album image’s URL is passed to an AWS lambda function that resizes and converts the image to a JPEG. This JPEG is downloaded to the PSRAM of the ESP32, decoded, and then shown on the SPI display.

Overview

Over the last two years I have designed and assembled 3 distinct versions of this project. The first version involved a large 64x64 RGB matrix display and an adafruit matrix portal. After the success of the first version, I decided to create a miniaturized version for my girlfriend, styled after a retro TV. This used a 1.69" 280x240 SPI display and a ESP32-S2 development board. For my Dad's birthday I created a version modeled after a classic Macintosh Plus (actually bought this at Value Village) using very similar hardware.

Assembling this project reminded me how much I enjoyed this concepet and inspired me to create a final design, in a format that I could potentially market. Unfortunatley after hitting Spotify's rate limit, I looked further into their verification process for the extended quota, and realized that they would likely never approve this application. This killed any potential of bringing this to market. An extremely thorough documentation of this final version is available here, but is unfortunately abandoned.