Hardware#

Supported gateway boards#

The repository contains builds for these display equipped gateways:

  • Lolin ESP32 D32 Pro with 2.4-inch TFT.

  • Lolin ESP32-S3 Pro with 2.4-inch TFT and SD card support.

  • Waveshare ESP32-S3 with 2.8-inch TFT and SD card support.

  • Waveshare ESP32-S3 with 4.3-inch RGB TFT and SD card support.

The 4.3-inch Waveshare board uses an RGB display interface and an I/O expander for board signals. Its display and SD setup differs from the SPI TFT boards. Use only firmware built for the exact board variant.

The PlatformIO environments identify the firmware variants. In particular, gateway32pro-tft enables the Lolin ESP32 D32 Pro display but does not enable SD logging; gateway32s3pro-tft-sd enables both the Lolin S3 display and SPI SD support; gateway32s3wave-tft28-sd uses an SD_MMC connection; and gateway32s3wave-tft43-sd uses SPI SD on the Waveshare 4.3-inch board. A board’s physical SD socket does not by itself mean every firmware build enables it.

Placement#

Place the gateway where it has reliable Wi-Fi coverage and can receive BLE advertisements from the brewing devices. Metal enclosures, closed cabinets, and distance can reduce radio range. For stable operation, use a suitable USB power supply for the selected board and attached display.

Storage#

The SD-enabled builds write measurement history to CSV files on the card. The web interface exposes the data under Measurements → View as graphs and tables, and Other → Tools → Secure Digital (SD) lists card files. The firmware uses an active /data.csv file and rotates it to numbered files when it grows beyond 16 KB. The Max number of log files on SD card setting controls the number of numbered rotated files retained in addition to the active file. For example, a setting of 4 can retain /data.csv and /data1.csv through /data4.csv. The SD log interval is configured separately under Measurements → Settings; it limits how often data from each BLE device is written. GravityMon and PressureMon Wi-Fi reports are logged as they arrive and are not throttled by this BLE interval.

The card connection differs by board. The Lolin S3 and Waveshare 4.3-inch variants use SPI SD, while the Waveshare 2.8-inch variant uses the ESP32 SD_MMC interface in one-bit mode. The Lolin S3 TFT and SD support are designed to work together in the current firmware. The 2.8-inch SD_MMC connection and the 4.3-inch I/O-expander chip-select arrangement are board-specific; do not use those pins or assumptions for another board or an external module.

For first checks, insert the card before powering the gateway, open Other → Tools, and confirm that SD is mounted and files are listed. Then check Measurements → View. If the view reports no card, inspect the firmware’s serial log for SD initialization or mount retry messages. The firmware retries mounting periodically on the current SD-enabled builds. Logging is unavailable while the card is not mounted; normal BLE receiving and push behavior can still be used without SD logging.

Some supported gateways also have an integrated TFT:

  • The Lolin ESP32 D32 Pro, Lolin ESP32-S3 Pro, and Waveshare 2.8-inch models use 240 × 320 SPI displays.

  • The Waveshare 4.3-inch model uses an 800 × 480 RGB display with separate display and touch hardware and PSRAM-backed display buffers.

  • The display cycles through received measurements about every four seconds. The Overview and Device focused layouts are selected under Device → Hardware. Touch and swipe controls vary with the panel and firmware variant; the browser UI remains the place to change settings and inspect full measurement history.

Board definitions and pin assignments are maintained in the repository’s boards directory and platformio.ini. These files are the reference for hardware revisions and custom builds.