Boards / All-in-one boards

Waveshare ESP32-S3-Touch-LCD-2

2" 240x320 IPS LCD (ST7789T3, SPI), CST816D touch, TF card, QMI8658C.

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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	Sitronix ST7789, 240 x 320 px, SPI (4-wire serial), 16-bit colour
Touch	Hynitron CST816S (capacitive, I2C)
Backlight	GPIO 1, dimmable (PWM)
Memory	16 MB flash, 8 MB octal PSRAM (N16R8)
Graphics library	GFX Library for Arduino

Display pins

ST7789 on SPI (4-wire serial): SPI clock 80 MHz, host SPI2_HOST, RGB colour order, inversion on.

Signal	Pin
SCK / CLK	GPIO 39
MOSI / SDA	GPIO 38
MISO / SDO	GPIO 40
CS	GPIO 45
DC / RS	GPIO 42
RESET	not connected
Backlight	GPIO 1

Touch pins

CST816S: I2C address 0x15, 400 kHz, shares the display bus.

Signal	Pin
SDA	GPIO 48
SCL	GPIO 47
INT / IRQ	GPIO 46
RESET	not connected

Also on the board

I2C (GPIO 48 / 47) - SDA GPIO 48, SCL GPIO 47
Camera control (GPIO 21 / 16) - SDA GPIO 21, SCL GPIO 16
IMU - QMI8658, at 0x6B, on I2C (GPIO 48 / 47)
Camera, on Camera control (GPIO 21 / 16), XCLK GPIO 8, PCLK GPIO 9, VSYNC GPIO 6, HREF GPIO 4, D0 GPIO 12, D1 GPIO 13, D2 GPIO 15, D3 GPIO 11, D4 GPIO 14, D5 GPIO 10, D6 GPIO 7, D7 GPIO 2, PWDN GPIO 17 (arrives switched off in a new design)
The 24-pin DVP camera connector (OV2640 / OV5640). Switched off because the connector is not always fitted and its lines are most of the headers. Its control lines are GPIO 21 / 16, a bus of their own, not the IMU's.
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-2/ESP32-S3-Touch-LCD-2-Demo.zip). Wiki spec table says 'USB Type-A' and 'LCD type ISP' - copy errors; the features list and schematic show USB Type-C wired to the S3's native USB. Camera connector (in the kit, switched off): pins are Waveshare's 09_lvgl_camera.ino (the 2" boards' demo zip), its control lines on a bus of their own (GPIO 21 / 16), 20 MHz, RGB565, power-down GPIO 17. Nothing has run on a board.

Designing for it in LCD Wizard

Choose Waveshare ESP32-S3-Touch-LCD-2 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.h and platformio.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 320 px in either orientation, with LVGL 9 or LVGL 8.

The parts

ST7789. Excellent colour and tolerates 80 MHz SPI. Many modules have no CS pin - tie it low and set CS to -1.

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.

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