VoltLog's LilyGO TTGO T-Wristband Hack Provides Wearable Monitoring for Any Octoprint 3D Printer
Talking to the printer via Octoprint's API, the Wi-Fi-connected T-Wristband proves an easy way to get at-a-glance status reports.
Florin "VoltLog" C. has published a guide to turning a LilyGO TTGO T-Wristband ESP32-powered smartwatch into a wearable monitor for a 3D printer, enabling wireless on-the-go control via Octoprint.
"You might have experienced a scenario where you have the [3D] printer located in a room or in a garage maybe on a different level," VoltLog explains of the problem his project works to address. "You let it run, printing a bigger project, and your mind your other business. Sometimes you might have multiple parts that need to be printed each might take several hours and you don't want the printer to stay idle between the prints for a long time — you want to know when it's finished so you can go in and start the next print."
"I thought about how I could solve this problem and I came up with a project where I'm using the LilyGO T-Wristband, which is basically an ESP32 development platform built into this smart bracelet form factor. The bracelet connects via Wi-Fi to the local network where Octoprint runs and manages the 3D printer. This way I can get status info about the 3D printer from the Octoprint API."
VoltLog's custom firmware was written in the Arduino IDE using the stock ESP32 board support package, and provides over-the-air update capabilities — meaning that, during development, the firmware running on the smartwatch could be updated via Wi-Fi. "[It] shows the things that are important to me like," VoltLog mentions, "like current and target temperatures for the heat bed and the hot end, the current status of the printer, the progress in percentages, elapsed and remaining time for the current print."
"As you may know the ESP32 is not particularly power efficient and the battery inside this wristband is quite small, so it's important to put the ESP32 into sleep to conserve energy. By pressing the touch button on the wristband I can put the ESP32 into sleep and by touching it again it will wake up the ESP32 and start updating the information once again."
The full video is available on the VoltLog YouTube channel, while the project's source code has been published on GitHub.
