the Shelly display
The house, visible.
A wall panel that shows what the house is doing right now: power, heat, sun on the roof. Hand built, one purpose, no app to open.
- brain
- ESP32-S3
- panel
- 7 inch IPS, 800 x 480
- data
- Shelly Gen3, MQTT
- frame
- 3D printed, oak front
- running since
- March 2025
Dashboards live in phones. Houses live on walls.
Every smart home ends up with the same problem: the data is there, but you have to go get it. Open the app, wait, tap through three screens to learn the dryer is done. That is not awareness, that is homework.
The panel flips the direction. It hangs where my eye already lands between tasks, and it answers three questions at a glance: what are we drawing, what is the roof making, what is still running. Nothing to open, nothing to unlock. The house just says it.
Six steps, one weekend, two mistakes.
Wiring the brain
The ESP32 sits on a printed sled, USB-C down. Leave the boot button reachable, you will need it more than you hope.
The display ribbon folds twice, never creases. The first panel died to teach this lesson. Mistake number one.
Power enters through a recessed channel so the panel sits flush on the wall. Routed after the fact. Mistake number two.
The full six steps, each with its photo and callouts, land here with the real build documentation.
Doing its thing.
Steal this part.
The whole thing is one ESPHome file and a printed frame. Both are here, take them. Build your own version, tell me what you changed.
sensor:
- platform: mqtt
topic: shellies/haus/power
name: "Bezug"
- platform: mqtt
topic: shellies/dach/pv
name: "Dach"
display:
- platform: ili9xxx
lambda: |-
it.print(20, 20, id(big), "Das Haus, sichtbar.");
Up close.
