Waveshare ESP32-S3 PhotoPainter

The Waveshare ESP32-S3 PhotoPainter is a standalone 7.3" Spectra 6 e-ink frame. In FrameOS it uses the ESP32 hardware preset waveshare_esp32_s3_photopainter, which selects the waveshare.EPD_7in3e panel driver, the PhotoPainter GPIO map, the BOOT and KEY1 buttons, and the TF card asset mount.

The board also has a speaker and microphones behind an audio codec, which FrameOS uses: the speaker plays the button beeps, and holding KEY1 starts the voice chat - say what you want, let go. Not yet tried on hardware.

Use this page for the all-in-one ESP32-S3 PhotoPainter board. If you are wiring the same 7.3" panel to a generic ESP32-S3 board, use the Waveshare 7.3" (E) page and the ESP32 guide instead.

How it works

FrameOS builds a dedicated ESP32-S3 firmware image for the board. The device renders scenes on-device, dithers them to the Spectra 6 palette, then refreshes the panel over the board's built-in SPI wiring. The PhotoPainter preset also enables the board-level power handling needed by this hardware.

The preset uses 16MB flash, 8MB PSRAM, and mounts the TF card at /srv/assets for local assets. The battery's voltage, charge and whether it's charging come from the board's AXP2101 power chip, so the frame knows when it's on its cell, and the PCF85063 real-time clock keeps the time between wakes.

Setup

1. In the FrameOS backend, create a frame with Flash embedded device.
2. Choose ESP32-S3, select the Waveshare ESP32-S3 PhotoPainter hardware preset, and enter WiFi details.
3. Flash it over USB from the browser - the backend writes the release image for the board and sets it up as this frame.
4. Install scenes as usual. The device syncs scene JSON and renders without SSH or Linux.

Status

🟢 Confirmed working - tested on real hardware.