ESPboy 

Homebrew gadget / Development platform

Retro games, IT/IoT STEM, education and fun


open source, portable, modular, Arduino IDE/PlatformIO compatible

for IT geeks, retro game fans, makers


 [ explore ] [ create ] [ learn ] [ code ] [ play ]

with WiFiAppStore, WebAppStore and community support



ESPboy - indie STEM project with unique handmade gadgets is designed to help enthusiasts learn/improve IT/IoT skills and promote Arduino making and engineering creativity.

An interesting hobby for you and your children, an opportunity to learn/improve programming, neo-retro game development, MCU and IoT technologies, electronics and digital devices making.

Feel free to email me,  welcome to the ESPboy community  Discord channel and forum.

Have fun!

Regards, Roman S.  --  IT project manager by day, ESPboy developer by night  :) 

All ESPboy versions are compatible!

Improved ESPboy for €85 5 in stock / 274 sold

The basic device without additional modules

PayPal payment for fully assembled and tested device, loaded with LGE games and WiFiAppStore, ready to play and access to WebAppStore.  Payment includes a logistics fee.  Please send your name and shipping address to ESPboy.edu@gmail.com. Shipment within 3 days provided with tracking number. Feel free to ask questions: discord chat, project forum or e-mail

Check out Tindie.com for alternative protected payment, project description and user feedback.

ESPboy:Kit or ESPboy:Kit PCB 3 in stock / 21 sold

At ESPboy:KIT you can order original "ESPboy:Kit" circuit board, electronic parts for it and even complete soldering of the device.  This is a simplified version of the original ESPboy1/ESPboy2 with all the through-holes and cheap parts, designed to help beginners make their own ESPboy.  Assemble the whole device yourself. Upload the firmware from ESPboy github or WebAppStore and have fun! Try Apps from the ESPboy WiFiAppStore and WebAppStore. Feel free to ask questions: discord chat, project forum or e-mail

ESPboy:DIY or ESPboy:DIY PCB 1 in stock / 84 sold

At ESPboy:DIY you can order original "ESPboy:DIY" circuit boards and enclosure panels, electronic parts and even complete soldering of the device. Assemble the whole device yourself if you have experience in soldering SMD components. Upload the firmware from ESPboy github or WebAppStore and have fun! Try Apps from the ESPboy WiFiAppStore and WebAppStore.  Feel free to ask questions: discord chat, project forum or e-mail

ESPboy:Breadboard

Follow the instructions on the www.instructables.com and build your own handmade "ESPboy:Breadboard ". The parts will cost you about $10 and can be ordered from sites such as www.aliexpress.com, www.digikey.com, www.mouser.com, www.lcsc.com, etc. Upload the firmware from ESPboy github or WebAppStore and have fun! Try Apps from the ESPboy WiFiAppStore and WebAppStore.  Feel free to ask questions: discord chat, project forum or e-mail

Highlights

WiFiAPPSTORE & WebAPPSTORE

try WebAppStore using Chrome browser or WiFiAppStore on your ESPboy device connecting to WiFi with a huge quantity of games and apps

ATTACHABLE MODULES

full keyboard, weather station, MP3 player, FM radio, LORA messenger, GSM phone, GPS navigator, DAC player, and more and your own...

GAME-DEV & PLAY

Little Game Engine web IDE, MicoJS web IDE, ZX spectrum 48k, GameBoy, Chip8/Schip, Arduboy, Gamebuino-META, ANARCH - 3D Doom-like game.

CHIPTUNE MUSIC COMPOSE

Using original ESPboy EBT tracker 

IoT & ONLINE SERVICES

WiFi-IoT.com, mysensors.org, mydevices.com, thingspeak.com, cloudmqtt.com, cloud.google.com, hivemq.com...

PENTESTING & OFFENSIVE SECURITY

WiFi attacks, BadUSB, RFID/NFC, SUB-1Ghz transceiver, iButton, InfraRed

CODING & PROTOTYPING

Arduino IDE, PlatformIO, espressif SDK, micropython,  Ardublock.ru, lua, basic, javascript, visuino, fl-prog...  

MOBILE PHONE INTEGRATION

blynk.io, remoutexy.com, virtuino.com

EXTENSION CONNECTOR

i2c, SPI, UART, ADC, i2s, LED out, MCP23017 GPIOs

SPECIFICATION

ESP8266, 80/160Mhz, 4/8Mb, WiFi, LCD 128х128, LCD brightness DAC, RGBled, HQspeaker, 8 buttons, 600mAh battery, 30x70х17mm

ESPboy - improved and glamour

ESPboy:DIY look and spirit

Users

What to do with ESPboy

Explore the Open Hardware and Software

Make hardware research, understand the schematic, and improve it. Use as a platform for fast prototyping.

Rapid prototyping 

With ESPboy you have everything you need to quickly prototype your idea

100% Arduino IDE and Arduino libraries compatible, display for the UI, buttons to control, speaker and RGB led for alarming and indication, WiFi for communication, battery for standalone operation, extension port for connecting external sensors or servos, compact size for portable use

Code Arduino IDE, VS code/PlatformIO, MicroPython,  LUA, Basic, Scratch

Learn to code. You don’t need to make low-level code, just take the right library from the huge Arduino community. Check all the ESPboy open-source Arduino software.  Write your own applications easily in standard IDEs using a wide range of compatible libraries.

Visual programming & firmware constructors

If you are new in coding, but full of ideas, try to draw your first program or use an online program constructor just selecting options or moving blocks: ardublock.ru, scratch.mit.edu, visuino, fl-prog, wifi-iot, mysensors.org

Chiptune music compose

Use EBT tracker to compuse your own chiptune music

Try WiFiAppStore and WebAppStore

Update the firmware in a minute, using WiFi and selecting the App from the list right on the ESPboy. No programming, buggy libraries, compilation, fighting the bugs, and wires. 

With the WebAppStore, you can upload apps to your ESPboy using the Chrome browser.

Indie neo-retro games rapid development 

Make your first game in a few hours using online web MicoJS IDE or Little Game Engine IDE with the help of community, Mico JS documentation/ LGE documentation, and samples.

Play retro old games youth of your parents, touch the most famous platforms of the past, learn how emulation works ZX-spectrum and GameBoy.

Explore the world of Arduboy, Pokitto,  Gamebuino META, CHIP8/SCHIP: platforms, community, and games. 

Use extension connector & gadget modules

All useful interfaces on the expansion connector: I2C, SPI, I2S, UART, ADC, few MCU GPIOs and additional GPIOs of the MCP23017 GPIO expander. 

Connect and control anything you want. The ideal prototyping mobile platform to test and improve your digital ideas.

Turn your ESPboy to the fully functional gadget in a minute with a standard expansion module or make your unique. MP3 player, GSM phone, FM radio, GPS navigator, LORA messenger, DAC AY38910 player, radiation meter, weather station. Play with it, understand the hardware, software, protocols, interfaces, create another one. 

Do pen-testing and offensive security

Research the protocols and make penetration tests of communication networks and security systems. WiFi attacks,  storing your office cards RFID/NFC with it's reading and emulation, storing iButton keys, remote control of the 433Mhz barriers, and garage doors, use as a universal IR remote control all of your devices, use as U2F security token and play with BAD-USB payloads.

Learn Internet of things, online services & mobile phone integration. Make your home smart

Learn the world of IoT. Connect the home automation sensors and actuators. Control them all or make the ESPboy one of them.  Using WiFi onboard, get the data from the net, provide remote wireless control and monitoring of your home, send telemetry data to the online databases and services like www.thingspeak.com, www.cloudmqtt.com, cloud.google.com, www.hivemq.com

Take control of your ESPboy and other devices, connected to it with your smartphone. We are supporting blynk.io and RemoteXY.com

Connectivity

There is WiFi onboard. But connecting the attacheble modules to expansion connector, you can use any trasiever: HC-11 for UART 433Mhz (excellent to control your robot or rover), CC1101 for 315/433/868Mhz (for controlling garage doors and barriers), NRF24le01 for 2.4Ghz, HC-06 for bluetooth, LORA modules and so on. The great thing that there are a huge quantity to open-source libraries for Arduino IDE so you can compile the included example and test the module just after the connection. No need to learn datasheet and then do low-level programming. 

Specification

Modules and Software

Connect the original module to the ESPboy's extension header, update the software through WiFi, and get the fully functional gadgets in a minute. Or build your own, explore, how it works.

Already tested  modules

433mhz sub-1Ghz inspector, GSM phone, GPS navigator, LORA messenger, Weather station, MP3 player, DAC player, IR remote, FM radio, Full layout keyboard, RFID/NFC reader-writer, CW Radio beacon, Radiation meter, Digital thermometer, Digital ruler, Pulsometer

Under development modules

Air quality monitor, Health monitor, OBDII car scanner, iButton reader/writer/emulator, Signal generator, Energy monitor, Arduino firmware uploader, Bad USB payloads, Оscilloscope, Thermovisor, photo camera

Software

WiFi deauther, WiFi analyzer,  Pinger, Packet sniffer, PT3 chiptune player, CHIP8/SCHIP emulator, ZX Spectrum 48k emulator, Little Game Engine,  Arduboy2 lib port + about 100 games already ported, GameBoy emulator, ANARCH - 3D Doom like game, Gamebuino META lib port + about 20 games already ported, ESP8266AUDIO library mod to utilize internal ESPboy speaker

IoT and online services

The core of ESPboy is ESP8266 MCU widely used in IoT and supported by all of the infrastructure

Code, connect and explore

Arduino IDE compatible and all its libraries. More over, there are wide range of supported development platforms

EBT tracker chiptune music

Check your sound volume

EBT is a tiny, minimalistic, yet quite powerful chiptune-like music editor with a tracker interface, originally developed for the ESPboy portable DIY handheld platform. 

The source code is portable, so it may be available on other platforms as well. Currently it features an SDL port, so it can run on a regular desktop PC as well, sharing the same data format, so the song and instrument files are easily transferable between the devices.

Shiru8bit

Demo videos

Check ESPboy in action on Youtube :)

ESPboy:Breadboard DIY

Make yourself the ESPboy multigadget in 30 minutes

ANARCH - 3D Doom-like game

Sinclair ZX Spectrum emulator

Pokitto compatible

There is ported Pokitto library specially for ESPboy. Now it's easy to migrate lot of excellent games from amazing neo retro Pokitto platform! About 10 games are ready to play right now at ESPboy and you can port any of them in a few hours.

Gamebuino META compatible

There is ported Gamebuino meta library specially for ESPboy. Now it's easy to migrate any of 50 excellent games from amazing neo retro Gamebuino META platform! About 20 games are ready to play right now at ESPboy and you can port any of them in a few hours.

Arduboy platform compatible

There is ported Arduboy2 lib specially for ESPboy. Now it's easy to migrate any of 200 excellent games from amazing neo retro Arduboy platform! About 100 games are ready to play right now at ESPboy and you can port any of them in a few hours.

Little Game Engine

To play Little Game Engine games online, choose the game, then in LGE IDE press "compile" and  "play" icon. You can check the source code of these games, learn LGE C-like script and then program your own first game in a few hours! With the help of ESPboy community in forum and chat.

To try game online: select one below, press "Compile" button and then "Play" icon

CHIP8/SCHIP emulator

The heritage interpreted programming language for the the COSMAC VIP and Telmac 1800 8-bit microcomputers in the mid-1970s . Play old games and try to make you own to win Octo Jam

Made on Earth, St.Petersburg © Roman S.

espboy.edu@gmail.com