Hardware
* ESP32-C3
* SSD1677 compatible display driver
* Hard to find out exactly what display is used...
After reading about the limitations of the ESP32-C3 I don't know if this device is worth investing time in. It's really cool, and has a lot of attractive hardware features but the single-core, small memory and limited connectivity of the C3 variant will make it hard to do the things I want to do with it
A better option would be assemble a similar platform based on the ESP32-S3. In addition to dual-cores and more connectivity, the S3 is interesting because of the vector hardware, and while I don't care about "AI" in the contemporary use of the term, that hardware could make it possible to do useful things on-device that would otherwise require depending on an external service.
That said, it might be possible to use this device to feel-out the limits of using an inexpensive e-ink display like this for interactive applications, specifically typing text. So to this end, using it with something like Adafruit's CircuitPython (which appears to be at a usable stage) to see how realistic using the Circuit/Micropython+ESP32+e-ink stack is for an interactive, text-based interface.
References
* https://github.com/sunwoods/Xteink-X4
* https://learn.adafruit.com/circuitpython-on-the-xteink-x4-ereader/overview
* https://www.espressif.com/en/products/socs/esp32-c3
* https://tinkeriot.com/esp32-variant-guide-c3-c5-s2-s3/
Jason J. Gullickson, 2026