matt-housley/cyd-dashboard — explained in plain English
Analysis updated 2026-05-18
Build a desk dashboard that shows HF radio propagation, PSK Reporter spots, and POTA/SOTA activations for ham radio operators.
Display a rotating clock, seven-day weather forecast, and stock/crypto price tracker on a cheap ESP32 touchscreen.
Track the ISS's current position and next overhead pass on a day/night world map.
Adapt the firmware to a different Cheap Yellow Display board variant by matching its display and touch controller chips.
| matt-housley/cyd-dashboard | anton-vinogradov/meshtastic-adv | doganulus/montre | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stars | 16 | 16 | 16 |
| Language | C++ | C++ | C++ |
| Last pushed | — | — | 2023-06-26 |
| Maintenance | — | — | Dormant |
| Setup difficulty | moderate | moderate | moderate |
| Complexity | 3/5 | 3/5 | 4/5 |
| Audience | general | vibe coder | researcher |
Figures from each repo's GitHub metadata at analysis time.
Requires an ESP32 Cheap Yellow Display board, PlatformIO, and matching the firmware config to your board's exact display and touch chips.
CYD Dashboard is firmware for a small, inexpensive ESP32 based touchscreen board nicknamed the Cheap Yellow Display, turning it into a rotating information dashboard. It was built mainly with amateur radio operators in mind, but it also shows everyday things like weather, news, and stock prices, so it works as a general purpose desk gadget too. The device cycles through fourteen screens, each pulling from its own data source and refreshing on its own schedule. There is a large clock with the date, time zone, moon phase shown as an actual lunar photo, and sunrise and sunset times. A weather screen shows a seven day forecast with animated icons, and a tracker screen plots stock and cryptocurrency prices. The radio specific screens cover HF band conditions and solar propagation data, an International Space Station tracker showing the day and night line and the next overhead pass, who is currently hearing your signal according to PSK Reporter, nearby DX cluster spots, and activity from the Parks on the Air and Summits on the Air programs, plus a calendar of upcoming radio contests. Two more screens show the top headlines from BBC News and a technology news site. You control the dashboard by swiping between screens or using a status bar at the top that shows the current screen name, the local time, WiFi signal strength, a play and pause button for automatic cycling, and a menu button for on device settings. Screens normally advance on their own every eight seconds. Because the name Cheap Yellow Display actually covers several slightly different circuit boards with different screen and touch controller chips, the project explains how to identify which chips are on a particular board and adjust a single configuration file to match, along with fixing common problems like an upside down image, mixed up colors, or touch input that does not line up with what is shown on screen. The project is written in C++ using the PlatformIO build system and the LovyanGFX graphics library, and it is meant to be flashed onto the small board's own flash memory rather than run on a computer.
Firmware turning the ESP32 Cheap Yellow Display into a rotating dashboard of ham radio, weather, news, and stock data across 14 auto-refreshing screens.
Mainly C++. The stack also includes C++, PlatformIO, LovyanGFX.
Setup difficulty is rated moderate, with roughly 1h+ to a first successful run.
Mainly general.
This repo across BitVibe Labs
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