A 4-inch smart art frame powered by ESP32-P4. Plays animated pixel art from Makapix Club, trending GIFs from Giphy, and your own files on a 24-bit 720x720 IPS touchscreen you control from anywhere.
Discord · Makapix Club · User Guide · Web Flasher · Makezine Article
p3a turns a $40 development board into a dedicated pixel art display. Think of it as a tiny gallery on your desk — it cycles through artworks automatically, picks up trending GIFs throughout the day, and lets users send artworks directly to it from Makapix Club, a pixel art social network.
It's open source, self-contained, and designed to be as simple to use as a picture frame — while still exposing a full REST API for those who want to automate and tinker.
What you need:
- Waveshare ESP32-P4-WIFI6-Touch-LCD-4B board ($39.99)
- microSD card ($7.99)
- USB-C data cable
- A small screwdriver
Setup steps:
- Insert the microSD card (requires unscrewing the back plate)
- Flash the firmware using the p3a Web Flasher — connect, click, done. No software to install. (Alternative methods)
- Connect to Wi-Fi — on first boot, join the
p3a-setupnetwork and configure your Wi-Fi athttp://p3a.local/ - Start playing art — add a Giphy API key for trending GIFs, register at makapix.club to send artworks, or copy your own files via USB
The initial flash requires a computer with USB. After that, all updates are wireless.
For full usage instructions, see HOW-TO-USE.md.
| Source | What it does |
|---|---|
| Makapix Club | Browse a pixel art social network and send artworks directly to your p3a. Play entire channels like "Promoted Artworks" or "#nintendo" Control your device remotely from anywhere. |
| Giphy | Automatically fetches and cycles through trending GIFs. Configurable content rating (G through R) and refresh interval. |
| Local files | Copy your own WebP, GIF, PNG, or JPEG files via USB or Wi-Fi. No cloud account needed, no internet required. |
Mix all three in a single "playset" for an ever-changing display.
- Animated WebP, GIF, PNG, and JPEG — with full transparency and alpha channel support
- Smart upscaling — pixel art uses nearest-neighbor scaling to keep edges crisp; Giphy content uses hardware-accelerated bilinear interpolation for smooth results
- Triple-buffered rendering with VSYNC — no tearing, no freezing, even with problematic files
- Aspect ratio preservation — non-square art is centered on the display with a configurable background color
- Auto-advance — cycles to a new artwork every 30 seconds (configurable)
| Gesture | Action |
|---|---|
| Tap right half | Next artwork |
| Tap left half | Previous artwork |
| Swipe up / down | Adjust brightness |
| Two-finger rotate | Rotate screen (0° / 90° / 180° / 270°) |
| Long press | Start device registration |
All controls are also available via the web UI and REST API.
Open http://p3a.local/ from any browser on the same Wi-Fi network for a full dashboard — playback controls, configuration, firmware updates, Giphy settings, and more.
p3a web UI: control everything from the browser
Every action is also exposed as a JSON API endpoint for scripting and automation.
curl http://p3a.local/status # Device status
curl -X POST http://p3a.local/action/swap_next # Next artwork
curl -X POST http://p3a.local/api/rotation \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"rotation": 90}' # Rotate screenThe web interface is LAN-only. For remote control, use Makapix Club.
After the first USB flash, everything is over-the-air:
- One-click install from the web UI, with progress shown on both screen and browser
- Automatic update checks every 8 hours — updates are never installed without your approval
- Automatic rollback if the new firmware fails to boot three times
- Manual rollback to the previous version at any time
- SHA256 verification of every download
- ESP32-C6 co-processor firmware updates automatically when needed
- Web UI updates are also delivered over-the-air
Stream PICO-8 games to the display over Wi-Fi. A WebAssembly emulator runs in your browser and sends frames to the device via WebSocket, which upscales them to 720x720. The 720x720 screen is a perfect square canvas for PICO-8's 128x128 output. The device returns to artwork playback when you exit PICO-8 mode.
Connect via USB-C to mount the microSD card as a removable drive — drag and drop your own artwork files directly.
p3a runs on the Waveshare ESP32-P4-WIFI6-Touch-LCD-4B, an off-the-shelf development board:
| Component | Details |
|---|---|
| MCU | Dual-core ESP32-P4 (RISC-V) + ESP32-C6 co-processor (Wi-Fi 6 / BLE) |
| Display | 4" 720x720 IPS, 24-bit color, dimmable backlight |
| Touch | 5-point capacitive (GT911) |
| Memory | 32 MB PSRAM, 32 MB flash |
| Storage | microSD card slot (4-bit SDMMC) |
| Connectivity | Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth LE |
| Power | USB-C (no battery needed) |
| Framework | ESP-IDF v5.5 |
Makapix Club is a pixel art social network where artists share animated creations. Register your p3a to unlock:
- Browse and send artworks or entire channels (e.g. "Promoted Artworks", "Recent Artworks") directly to your device
- Remote control from any browser — change artwork, adjust brightness, pause/resume from anywhere
- Secure connection via mutual TLS (mTLS) with per-device certificates
- Real-time updates — your device receives artworks and commands instantly over encrypted MQTT
To register: open the Settings page of the web UI (http://p3a.local/), go to the "Makapix" tab, and click "Enter provisioning mode". The device will display a 6-character code, enter it at makapix.club. After thet point, the device connects automatically.
Join the Makapix Club Discord to connect with other p3a users and the pixel art community.
| Layer | Components |
|---|---|
| Core | p3a_core (state machine), config_store (NVS settings), event_bus |
| Playback | play_scheduler, playback_queue, channel_manager |
| Decoders | animation_decoder (WebP/PNG/JPEG), animated_gif_decoder (GIF), libwebp_decoder |
| Connectivity | wifi_manager (provisioning, captive portal, mDNS), http_api (REST + WebSocket), makapix (MQTT/TLS) |
| Content | giphy (API + SD caching), content_cache, loader_service, storage_eviction |
| System | ota_manager, slave_ota (C6 firmware), p3a_board_ep44b (HAL), sdio_bus |
| Extras | pico8 (game streaming), show_url (URL artwork download), ugfx (graphics primitives) |
| Partition | Mount | Size | Purpose |
|---|---|---|---|
| LittleFS | /webui |
4 MB | Web UI assets |
| NVS | — | 24 KB | Wi-Fi credentials, settings, state |
| OTA 0 / OTA 1 | — | 8 MB each | Dual firmware slots |
| Slave FW | — | 2 MB | ESP32-C6 co-processor firmware |
| SD Card | /sdcard |
— | All artwork storage |
SD card layout: /sdcard/p3a/animations/ (local files), /sdcard/p3a/vault/ (Makapix cache, SHA256-sharded), /sdcard/p3a/giphy/ (Giphy cache).
| Document | Description |
|---|---|
| HOW-TO-USE.md | Full user guide — setup, touch controls, Wi-Fi, web UI, REST API, Giphy, PICO-8 |
| flash-p3a.md | Flashing instructions (web flasher and alternatives) |
| INFRASTRUCTURE.md | Technical architecture for developers and contributors |
- Discord — Makapix Club Discord for discussion, tips, and pixel art
- Makapix Club — makapix.club to browse and share pixel art
- Issues — GitHub Issues for bug reports and feature requests
Contributions are welcome. By contributing, you agree that your work will be licensed under the Apache License 2.0.
Start with INFRASTRUCTURE.md for technical details about the codebase.
Apache License 2.0 — see LICENSE. For dependency licenses, see LICENSING.md.
Thanks to ByteWelder from the Espressif MCUs Discord channel for advice in the early days of p3a.