What is Marquee

How does Marquee Work?

The stage (bitmap) is created in the Marquee web app, and stored on Adafruit IO feeds you create. Your device fetches the stage image from the cloud, and renders it on the e-paper display. Marquee also handles putting the device into light or deep sleep modes to save power, and waking it up to fetch new content when the stage is edited.

If you've wanted to display sensor readings on your device running WipperSnapper, you're in luck! The Adafruit IO development team has been cooking up a new feature that fits perfectly with the new Block-based Actions system on Adafruit IO.

The process for setting up a display on a development board running WipperSnapper is simple, there is no coding or soldering - you just click! 

To demonstrate this, let's walk through the process together by building a sensor node to monitor a greenhouse.

Parts

WipperSnapper Firmware supports a wide variety of different boards from Adafruit and others. For this greenhouse monitor, we'll be using the Adafruit Feather ESP32-S2 since it has a LiPoly battery monitor (LC709203 chip), native USB, and 4 MB flash + 2 MB of PSRAM.

WipperSnapper is a different application from CircuitPython. Because of this, installing WipperSnapper will completely erase the CircuitPython installation and all files on your board. 

If you did not install CircuitPython on this board, you may ignore this step and proceed to the next step.

Backup CircuitPython Files

ESP32 boards running CircuitPython use the web workflow to access the board's file system. The CircuitPython web workflow uses mDNS so that connecting to the board can be as simple as using the address circuitpython.local. 

Click the button below to navigate to this URL:

(Optional) Backup CircuitPython Files

WipperSnapper is a different application from CircuitPython. Because of this, installing WipperSnapper will completely erase the CircuitPython installation and all files on your board. 

If you did not install CircuitPython on this board, you may ignore this step and proceed to the next step.

Verify and Backup CircuitPython Installation

When you plug a CircuitPython board into your computer, your computer will see the board's flash memory as a USB flash drive where files can be stored. When the board is running CircuitPython, you'll see the CIRCUITPY drive. 

Hi, I'm Brent!

🏢 I work for Adafruit. I'm currently working on software (Adafruit IO, WipperSnapper) that helps people connect their projects to the ☁️ 

📰 I write a monthly newsletter for Adafruit about the Internet of Things that you should subscribe to! 

🏖️ When I'm not hacking on code or building something with my hands - I'll be at a beach (weather permitting), gardening, walking my dog, checking out some art, or hiking.

🐦 Follow me on Twitter - @brentrubell

We're close to publicly releasing UART support for Adafruit.io and WipperSnapper. This would enable a device running WipperSnapper to initialize a physically connected UART device, such as the PM2.5 Air Quality Sensor and Breadboard Adapter Kit - PMS5003, and send its data to Adafruit.io. As always with WipperSnapper firmware, this is all performed without requiring a user to write code.

Below is a sneak peek of the following, but how did we get to this result over the course of a month? What went into adding a feature to Adafruit.io and WipperSnapper Firmware? 

Protocol Buffers: How WipperSnapper and Adafruit IO Communicate

When we developed WipperSnapper, we employed Protocol Buffers (Google's open-source data interchange format) to send data between a Device and Adafruit IO.

What are Protocol Buffers? (via protobuf.dev)

Protocol buffers are Google’s language-neutral, platform-neutral, extensible mechanism for serializing structured data – think XML, but smaller, faster, and simpler. You define how you want your data to be structured once, then you can use special generated source code to easily write and read your structured data to and from a variety of data streams and using a variety of languages

The core of this communication revolves around the Adafruit IO website, specifically the component picker form. When you select a UART component on Adafruit.io, it will look something like this:

Install arduino-esp32 from the source

WipperSnapper is an Arduino application built on a board support package like the ESP32 Arduino Core. To build WipperSnapper, you will want the absolute latest version of the arduino-esp32 core installed into Arduino.

To do this, follow the steps below:

1. Install the latest version of "Arduino Legacy IDE (1.8.X)" from arduino.cc/en/software
2. After Installing Arduino IDE 1.8.X, open Arduino IDE. Then, after it loads, close it.
3. Install the latest version of the Arduino-ESP32 board support package for your platform. Make sure to follow the instructions on the espressif documentation, rather than installing the board support package directly from Arduino IDE
   1. For Linux, follow the install instructions here...
   2. For MacOS, follow the install instructions here...
   3. For Windows, follow the install instructions here...

Verify Installation

Open Arduino IDE and navigate to the Tools->Board menu. From there, you should see "ESP32 Arduino (in sketchbook)". The (in sketchbook) part of the string identifies that you have installed the Arduino-ESP32 core manually, rather than using the Board Manager.

If your path exactly matches the one shown in the screenshot below, let's move onto the next step.