building a tiny spotify display with esp32 and nostalgia

working with hardware is cool. although it can look scary at first, it can be very fun. as a dev, I never spent too much time working with hardware, apart from some classes I had to take at uni.

my first IoT project was the classic and famous soil moisture and temperature sensor, and I had so much fun doing it. a few years after playing around with my first ESP32, discovering the world of cyberdecks kind of rekindled my love for IoT.

a cyberdeck is a custom-built, portable personal computer, often designed for a specific purpose and usually with a cyberpunk aesthetic (thank you, Wikipedia). in other words, your own DIY PC! :)

i was introduced to cyberdecks through writer decks, which is a distraction-free device for writers. i read a lot about it on reddit and found this great website full of projects https://www.writerdeck.org/

two seconds into reading i thought: well, this can get really expensive. that’s why i took a few steps back and decided to build a few iot projects first, just to make sure i wouldn’t burn my money (literally)

of course that only worked for a few months until i had multiple projects happening at the same time and i am quite close to finishing my own cyberdeck. i will be publishing about it as soon as I figure out how 3d modeling and printing works

today i want to share one of the projects i’ve been working on with my esp32: a cute display that shows what you’re listening to on spotify. it took me a few hours to get it done and i just love how cute it looks!

if you want to build the same thing you will need the following things:

• esp32
• protoboard
• male jumpers
• small display
• spotify api
• arduino ide
• coding skills (you can use claude to help you out with the coding part)

this makes me feel so nostalgic, i miss my old mp4 :p