Summary
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Self-contained pixel aquarium on ESP32 CYD (cheap yellow screen) includes drifting fish, plants and food.
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Includes 12-hour clock, NTP synchronization over Wi-Fi, auto-dimming backlight via light sensor; works offline.
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Code, instructions and functions listed on GitHub to upload to the CYD 2.8″ touchscreen.
If I had a nickel for every time I reported on a nice aquarium app designed to work entirely with an ESP32 CYD, I’d have two cents. It’s not much, but unlike how the meme says, I don’t think it’s strange that it happened twice; In fact, I love it.
It’s only been a few weeks since we saw the ASCII Aquariuma cute little project that brought digital fish to your CYD. Now, someone else has released their own app and this one uses pixel graphics.
The ESP32 CYD Aquarium brings pixelated fish to your device
It will also show you the time.
Beyond the ESP32 SubredditGitHub user Lagerpun showed off his fantastic pixel aquarium. It is fully powered by the ESP32-2432S028, which is more affectionately known as Cheap Yellow Display or CYD. The CYD combines the microprocessor with a screen to run things and, as you can guess from its name, it is very affordable.
The main strength of the CYD is that you can include applications and let it run without much configuration, something that the ESP32 CYD Aquarium takes advantage of:
Turn one of these small 2.8-inch ESP32 touchscreens into a self-contained desktop aquarium: moving water, a handful of small creatures, plants, drifting food, and a 12-hour clock. Give it Wi-Fi and sync time via NTP; Leave the Wi-Fi off and it will still work fine on its own. It also dims its own backlight using the light sensor already on the dash.
If you want to get this nice program in your own CYD, go to project GitHub page to find the code, instructions, and a complete list of features.
