Show HN: ESP8266 as a VNC Client Connecting to a Raspberry Pi

56 points by adysan 10y ago ↗ HN

It's been a while since this ESP8266 VNC Client library has been out.

https://github.com/Links2004/arduinoVNC

Today I finally got my ILI9341 display, so tried to set it up as a remote display for the Raspberry Pi. Here's a demo video and photo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVFWgACP6sw https://www.instagram.com/p/BDJwURSkdY_/

On the Pi, all you need to do is start a TightVNC server, something like this

  vncserver :1 -geometry 320x240 -depth 16 -name "ESP VNC :888" -alwaysshared -s 0 -nocursor -broadcast

The ESP8266 connects instantly on boot up. Looking at the accuracy of the touch panel, doesn't look very practical as an input device, but it could be fun as a remote display if setup correctly. Perhaps some sort of dashboard running on the RPi. You could even set it up to connect to multiple Raspberry Pi's by using one of the ESP's GPIO's to to select one. The video refresh rate looks bad, I guess because I couldn't find a way to setup hextile encoding with TightVNC. If you looks at his original demo video running the XVNC server on a Linux box, it looks much smoother (20-25fps). Overclocking the ESP to 160MHz might help too.

Finally, this library is an entrant in the 1st Annual ESP8266 Design Contest. If you think it's kinda cool, please go and vote for it here: http://www.esp8266.com/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=8832

6 comments

[ 1.8 ms ] story [ 37.6 ms ] thread

adysan 10y ago ↗

Ah I see, no links in the post. Here you go:

Library: https://github.com/Links2004/arduinoVNC

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVFWgACP6sw

Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/BDJwURSkdY_/

Contest: http://www.esp8266.com/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=8832

alexchamberlain 10y ago ↗

What hardware are you using (other than the ESP8266 and ILI9341 of! )

Nothing really, as for the ESP, I'm using a NodeMCU 1.0 dev kit, but that's just for convenience of uploading the sketch. All you really need is the display, ESP-12E and power.

And of course, you need something to host the VNC server at the correct screen size, in this case it's a Raspberry Pi.

swah 10y ago ↗

This is great - I didn't imagine the ESP was so powerful! Could be a great low-fps security camera terminal...

I think that's the exact idea Markus started this project with .

> The starting point to the project where to stream my Door cam to a Display in my living room. - See more at: http://www.esp8266.com/viewtopic.php?f=152&t=8731#sthash.v8H...

fit2rule 10y ago ↗

I've been working on an ESP-based product recently (http://magicshifter.net/) and I have to say that the ESP really is a lot more powerful than people give it credit, at first glance .. we're able to do quite some processing for various things (POV, MIDI, etc.) ..