Using an old ESP32 and 3 very old HT1632 8x32 LED matrix panels

• Originally created ~2011 for a Make Magazine project, and has been [updated over the years to its current form

Features:

• Spotify Integration:
  • Start playing a song and the sign automatically switches to act as a "now playing" display
  • Displays song information and live duration
  • Used to scrape lyrics as well but haven't ported that feature to this version yet
• Headlines:
  • Using NewsAPI to find and scrape headlines
    • Configurable sources and topics for these headlines
    • Day to day, I have it pull a bunch of headlines every hour, and display a few every 10-15 minutes
    • Free for under 1000/requests a day
• Weather
  • Determines city and rough geographical coordinates from IP via ipwhois.io API at startup
  • Uses OpenMeteo for Weather information
  • Automatic updates every 15 minutes
  • WIP: custom icons for different forecasts (cloudy, snow, etc)
• Clock
  • NTP based timekeeping
  • In the end, it's an overengineered digital clock, what else can I say?
  • WIP: fun clockfaces like Conway's Game of Life, animations, etc.

Currently for the last 10-12 years has been enclosed in an old set of blinds,

• One of these days I'll finish the enclosure... right?
  • Would love to add one more panel but you can't get these matrix displays w/ the same driver IC anymore :-(

• Quite well suited for viewing from across the room..

Should really be rewritten from scratch

• Tech debt from using the same modded HT1632 lib for 10+ years
  • Originally for an older Arduino, could really be faster/more efficient
• Ideally should use RTOS / task based approach and better queuing for different tasks / states accessing the display

WebUI needs a finished settings page

WiFI credentials are saved to flash, see <matrix/data/config.json> or the NetworkManager class.

• on the event of WiFi failure, the matrix hosts a wifi, you can join and set the SSID/pwd there...
• no UI for this yet, TODO
• TODO: cleanup and move NetworkManager into its own library for use in other personal projects

Boy do I love ESP OTA updates, makes development fun not fiddling with USB->FTDI cables and reset buttons.

• Noticing a bug, quickly fixing it, and having Platform.IO uploading a patch automatically post-compilation makes for fantastic workflow

One must configure api_config.hpp with their own API credentials

• will instead save these to SPIFFS or something in near future, before I accidentally somehow commit API tokens again.. (VSCode overwrote my .gitignore a few weeks ago and I got to learn how to edit the history of git repositories as a result!)