I recently purchased a DFRobot DFR0507 OLED display kit to display error messages, server status among other things from my ESP32. It is a monochrome 1 inch display with sharp contrast and a light blue backlight. It is a DFRobot ‘Cover’, meaning that it is a kit with a display attached to it and it is designed to be mounted on top of your ESP32 FireBeetle board. This results in a neat sandwich-like setup with no wires, similar to Arduino Shields.
It is a 128×64 pixel DIY kit that must be assembled. It comes with two pairs of pin headers to choose from, making it versatile enough to fit into most projects. The choice of pin headers also means that even though the DFR0507 will cover your ESP32 FireBeetle kit’s original pins, there are still ways to make them accessible. However, I had to plan that out before assembling the ESP32 FireBeetle itself.
DFRobot provides an Arduino library that makes it straightforward to write to the DFR0507 OLED display with only a few lines of code. This means you can get up and running with it using the provided code examples in a matter of minutes. Aside from the few lines of code required to initialize and clear the display, you can print a line to the DFR0507 screen simply by typing display.println("Hello world");. Drawing is straightforward as well using statements like display.drawLine(...).
The DFR0507 kit also comes with a joystick-like controller and two soft, rubbery buttons that provide cushy (but not squishy) feedback. These make it a little easier to implement some controls if you only need two buttons. For example: If you’re making an ESP32 OLED clock, you could use one button to cycle through time zones and the other to set the time. The joystick could then be used to set the hours and minutes. Overall, this kit strikes a good balance between price and the ease-of-getting started. If you’re comfortable with soldering on the header pins yourself, then this kit could be a good fit for you. If not, you’ll have to learn to solder first.
