Waveshare ESP32-S3-Touch-LCD-1.28
1.28" 240x240 round IPS LCD (GC9A01A, SPI), CST816S touch, QMI8658 IMU, battery sense.
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Building for it
A project is made for one toolchain, picked when you start it. All four can drive this board:
| Toolchain | |
|---|---|
| Arduino (C++) | Every board, every widget and every peripheral here. The most control, and the most to set up. Start a project |
| MicroPython | Change a screen by editing a file on the board. No compiler once it is flashed. Start a project |
| ESPHome | No compiler to install, and the panel can join Home Assistant as real entities. Start a project |
| ESP-IDF (C) | Espressif's own framework: esp_lcd, the component registry and idf.py, with nothing of Arduino in it. Start a project |
At a glance
| Part | Detail |
|---|---|
| Maker | Waveshare |
| MCU | ESP32-S3 Xtensa LX7 dual-core @ 240 MHz, 512 KB SRAM (+ 2-16 MB PSRAM on most modules) |
| Display | Galaxycore GC9A01 / GC9A01A, 240 x 240 px, SPI (4-wire serial), 16-bit colour |
| Touch | Hynitron CST816S (capacitive, I2C) |
| Backlight | GPIO 2, dimmable (PWM) |
| Memory | 16 MB flash, 2 MB quad PSRAM (N16R2) |
| Graphics library | GFX Library for Arduino |
Display pins
GC9A01 / GC9A01A on SPI (4-wire serial): SPI clock 80 MHz, host SPI2_HOST, BGR colour order, inversion on.
| Signal | Pin |
|---|---|
| SCK / CLK | GPIO 10 |
| MOSI / SDA | GPIO 11 |
| MISO / SDO | GPIO 12 |
| CS | GPIO 9 |
| DC / RS | GPIO 8 |
| RESET | GPIO 14 |
| Backlight | GPIO 2 |
Touch pins
CST816S: I2C address 0x15, 400 kHz, shares the display bus.
| Signal | Pin |
|---|---|
| SDA | GPIO 6 |
| SCL | GPIO 7 |
| INT / IRQ | GPIO 5 |
| RESET | GPIO 13 |
Also on the board
- I2C (GPIO 6 / 7) - SDA GPIO 6, SCL GPIO 7
- IMU - QMI8658, at 0x6B, on I2C (GPIO 6 / 7)
- Battery - analog input on GPIO 1
- BOOTButton - input on GPIO 0
The preset adds these to the Hardware tab with the board, so a sensor can go straight onto the connector.
Check your revision. Pins from Waveshare's demo code and schematic (https://files.waveshare.com/wiki/ESP32-S3-Touch-LCD-1.28/ESP32-S3-Touch-LCD-1.28-Demo.zip). Docs say two MOSFETs near the battery holder connect to GPIO4 and GPIO5, but the schematic shows GPIO4 = IMU_INT1 and GPIO5 = TP_INT, with Q3/Q4 marked NC (unpopulated). The IMU shares the touch panel's I2C bus; its address is 0x6B - the vendor's demo probes 0x6A then 0x6B and the strap could not be read from the schematic, and a board run on 2026-10-10 reported its IMU working at this address. Battery sense is GPIO1 through a divide-by-three, from the vendor's demo; the scale is 3.3 V x 3 and is not calibrated. Run on a board on 2026-10-10 in all three exports and reported all good, the IMU and Bluetooth included.
Designing for it in LCD Wizard
- Choose Waveshare ESP32-S3-Touch-LCD-1.28 on the Hardware tab (or use the button above) and every pin on this page is filled in. The export writes the sketch,
lcd_pins.h, the GFX Library for Arduino configuration,lv_conf.handplatformio.ini- a project that builds for this board as it comes. - The CST816S is capacitive and needs no calibration. The firmware resets it and checks it answers on every boot.
- The backlight is dimmable: give a slider or a button a Set backlight action.
- With PSRAM the LVGL memory pool can live there, leaving internal RAM for everything else.
- Screens are designed for 240 x 240 px in either orientation, with LVGL 9 or LVGL 8.
The parts
GC9A01 / GC9A01A. 1.28" round panel used for watch and gauge UIs.
CST816S. Single touch plus gestures. Standard on 1.28" round GC9A01 modules. Needs RST wired.
ESP32-S3. The only common Arduino target with a hardware RGB565 LCD peripheral. PSRAM is effectively required for RGB panels.
GFX Library for Arduino. Moshi Liu's library. Best QSPI/AMOLED and RGB coverage. Configured in code.
The pinout on one page
Every pin above, laid out to print and keep beside the bench. Generated from this preset, so it says exactly what the designer writes into lcd_pins.h.
Download the pinout (PNG)Open it as SVG
The same pins as data - board.json and pins.csv - are in the open pinout dataset on GitHub, free to reuse under CC BY 4.0.
From the people who made it
The board’s own documentation. Pinouts on vendor pages do sometimes disagree with the hardware in front of you - where this page and that one differ, trust your board and tell us.
- The vendor’s product page
- Vendor documentation
- Schematic (PDF)
- Waveshare demo code (pins read from here)
Designs for this board
Nobody has published a design for this board yet. Publish yours from the designer and it appears here and in the gallery.
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- Quick start - from an empty screen to firmware on the board
- Boards and displays - presets, controllers, pins and touch in the designer
- Flashing and configuration - PlatformIO, the Arduino IDE and first-boot checks
- Troubleshooting - a white screen, mirrored image or touch that misses