Boards / All-in-one boards

Waveshare ESP32-S3-Touch-LCD-2.8

2.8" 240x320 IPS LCD (ST7789T3, SPI), CST328 touch, PCM5101A speaker, TF card, QMI8658C, PCF85063ATL, battery sense.

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Building for it

A project is made for one toolchain, picked when you start it. For this board you can use three of the four:

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)	The ESP-IDF export has no read for this touch controller yet. The Arduino export reads it.

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 CST328 (capacitive, I2C)
Backlight	GPIO 5, 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 SPI3_HOST, RGB colour order, inversion on.

Signal	Pin
SCK / CLK	GPIO 40
MOSI / SDA	GPIO 45
MISO / SDO	GPIO 46
CS	GPIO 42
DC / RS	GPIO 41
RESET	GPIO 39
Backlight	GPIO 5

Touch pins

CST328: I2C address 0x1A, 400 kHz.

Signal	Pin
SDA	GPIO 1
SCL	GPIO 3
INT / IRQ	GPIO 4
RESET	GPIO 2

Also on the board

I2C (GPIO 11 / 10) - SDA GPIO 11, SCL GPIO 10
IMU - QMI8658, at 0x6B, on I2C (GPIO 11 / 10)
RTC - PCF85063, at 0x51, on I2C (GPIO 11 / 10)
SDCard - SD card, CLK GPIO 14, CMD GPIO 17, D0 GPIO 16
GPIO 7 is set high at boot - Battery power hold (GPIO 7)
Battery - analog input on GPIO 8
BOOTButton - input on GPIO 0
PWRKey BATButton - input on GPIO 6

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-2.8/ESP32-S3-Touch-LCD-2.8-Demo.zip). Colour order: Arduino writes MADCTL 0x00 (RGB); ESP-IDF builds the panel with LCD_RGB_ENDIAN_BGR and mirror(true,false). The touch panel has I2C pins 1/3 to itself; the IMU and the clock are on 11/10. Its TF card (SDMMC, 1-bit, on 14/17/16 as Waveshare's demo has it), its speaker (the PCM5101A on I2S 48/38/47, arriving switched off: Hardware > Audio), and its battery input (GPIO 8, read x3) were added 2026-10-22 from the record, the preset having been made before the importer carried them; compiled, not run on a board. This is the V1 revision (CST328 touch at 0x1A), which Waveshare says was discontinued, boards shipped from 5 June 2026 being V2 (CST3530 at 0x58, same pins and panel) - check the label on the back; an Arduino export from either record reads whichever touch chip answers.

Designing for it in LCD Wizard

Choose Waveshare ESP32-S3-Touch-LCD-2.8 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 CST328 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.

CST328. Waveshare ESP32-S3 Touch LCD 2.8"/4" boards.

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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Waveshare ESP32-S3-LCD-22" 240x320 IPS LCD (ST7789T3, SPI), TF card, QMI8658C.ESP32-S3 · ST7789 240 x 320 · no touchPurchase this board

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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