Loud ESP is an ESP32-powered, rich-audio development board. Available with or without a color touchscreen, Loud ESP has a wealth of peripherals to support a wide range of user interaction. It is compact, portable, battery-powered, and designed to accommodate a variety of enclosures, all of which make it an ideal platform for the development of wearables and other smart devices. To help out with that, we maintain a repository of sample code that you can adapt for your own applications.
Wireless, Touchscreen-Enabled Versatility for Audio Applications
Loud ESP is well suited for a number of different applications. To name just a few examples, it can be used as a portable speaker system with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth capability, an internet-radio receiver, a framework for developing wearables and talking gadgets, or a smart speaker connected to the platform of your choice, such as Spotify.
Features & Specifications
- MCU Core
- ESP32 Dual Core 32-bit LX6 microprocessor running at 240 MHz
- 16 MB of flash storage
- 8 MB of PSRAM
- CP2102 Serial communication / Flashing chip
- Battery management
- Li-Ion battery charging with charge status indication
- Battery overcharge and overdischarge protection
- Battery overcurrent protection
- Battery voltage reading using built-in DAC
- Onboard power switch
- 2-pin connector for external battery
- onboard, 14500 battery holder (touchscreen version only)
- Audio capabilities
- Dual I2S stereo DAC (Maxim Integrated MAX98537) with built in D-Class amp
- 3 W per channel on 4 Ohm load
- Up to 92% efficiency
- Onboard 5.5 V boost converter
- Peripherals
- Wi-Fi & Bluetooth
- RGB LED, RGB LED strip header
- 2.8", 320 x 240 px TFT Screen with touch sensor (touchscreen version only)
- IR reader (touchscreen version only)
- SD Card slot (touchscreen version only)
- JTAG header (touchscreen version only)
- Rotary encoder/Joystick header (touchscreen version only)
- Other
- RESET and GPIO0 (FLASH) buttons
- Software samples for every onboard peripheral
- Mechanical compatibility with Raspberry Pi 4 enclosures (touchscreen version only)
Comparisons
| Loud ESP | Loud ESP Mini | Adafruit ESP32-S2 TFT Feather | LILYGO® TTGO T-Display ESP32 | ESP32-Audio-Kit ESP32-A1S | ESPlay Micro | Obsidian ESP32 | Espressif ESP32-S2-Kaluga-1 Kit | Espressif ESP32-LyraT-Mini | M5Stack Core2 ESP32 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MCU Core | ESP32 @ 240 Mhz | ESP32 @ 240 Mhz | ESP32-S2 @ 240MHz | ESP32 @ 240 Mhz | ESP32 @ 240 Mhz | ESP32 @ 240 Mhz | ESP32 @ 240 Mhz | ESP32-S2 @ 240MHz | ESP32 @ 240 Mhz | ESP32 @ 240 Mhz |
| USB-Serial Bridge | CP2102 | CP2102 | Native USB | CP2102/CH9102 | CP2102 | CH340G | CP2102 | Native USB | CP2102 | CP2104 |
| Memory & Storage | ||||||||||
| Flash (MB) | 16 | 16 | 4 | 4 or 16 | 4 or 16 | 4 | 16 | 4 | 4 | 16 |
| PSRAM (MB) | 8 | 8 | 2 | No | 4 | 4 | 8 | 2 | 8 | 8 |
| SD-CARD | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Battery Management | ||||||||||
| Li-Ion/Li-Po BMS | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Battery-Voltage Monitoring | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No | Yes |
| Audio Capabilities | ||||||||||
| DAC | Stereo | Stereo | No | No | Stereo | Stereo | Pi HAT | Mono | Mono | Mono |
| Amplifier | 2 x 3 W | 2 x 3 W | No | No | 2 x 3 W | No | Pi HAT | 3 W | 3 W | 3 W |
| User-Interaction | ||||||||||
| Screen Size (in) | 2.8 | No | 1.14 | 1.14 | No | 2.4 | No | 3.2 | No | 2 |
| Screen Resolution (px) | 320 x 240 | No | 240 x 135 | 240 x 135 | No | 320 x 240 | No | 320 x 240 | No | 320 x 240 |
| Touch Screen | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | Yes |
| IR Receiver | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| RGB LED | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | Yes |
| JTAG Header | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Rotary Encoder / Joystick Header | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Buttons | Reset, Flash | Reset, Flash | Reset, Flash | Reset, Flash | 6 user keys | 9 user keys | Reset, Flash | Reset, Flash, 6 user keys | Reset, Flash, 6 user keys | 3 user keys |
| Physical | ||||||||||
| Dimensions (mm) | 85 x 55 | 82 x 26 | 52 x 23 | 52 x 25 | 83 x 68 | 100 x 50 | 64 x 55 | 165 x 123 | 100 x 100 | 54 x 54 |
Support & Documentation
You can find documentation such as board schematics, firmware, and sample code in our GitHub repository. You can also follow our progress on Hackaday.io or reach out using the Ask a technical question link below.
Manufacturing Plan
We developed three revisions of this board before settling on the current feature set, and it took two more revisions to polish up all the tiny details. All five prototyping runs were handled by JLCPCB, and we’ve encountered no manufacturing issues, so we’re happy to say we’ll be sticking with them for production. And we’ve done our homework. We have quotes in hand for full production runs with various batch sizes. As soon as our campaign hits its funding goal, we plan to order a starter batch of the final revision for testing. Then, once we confirm that everything is ship shape, we’ll place the order!
Fulfillment & Logistics
After our production run is complete, we will box everything up and send it along to Crowd Supply’s fulfillment partner, Mouser Electronics, who will distribute products to backers worldwide. You can learn more about Crowd Supply’s fulfillment service under Ordering, Paying, and Shipping in their guide.
Risks & Challenges
All projects of this nature face some level of risk when it comes time to order parts—a fact that’s never been more apparent than it is today, with this global chip shortage wreaking havoc on supply chains. We’re standing solid with key components of the board, and we maintain an up-to-date replacement list for the smaller parts in the BOM.
