ESP32 Cheap Yellow Display: da Curiosità Tecnica a Superstar

Every now and then a piece of hardware comes along that makes you raise an eyebrow. At first glance, the ESP32 Cheap Yellow Display Board (CYD) looks like one of those no-name curiosities from the depths of an online marketplace: a bright yellow PCB, a 2.8-inch touchscreen bolted on top, and an ESP32 at its heart. No datasheet, no polished branding, and certainly no glossy manual in the box.

And yet, here we are: the CYD has become one of the most talked-about ESP32 development boards of recent years. Why? Because it manages to combine an ESP32, a decent-sized color display, touchscreen, SD card slot, and extra peripherals into one compact package for little more than the price of a takeaway meal. For many makers, that combination was simply too good to ignore.

First Impressions

Under the hood, the CYD carries the familiar ESP-WROOM-32 module, a dual-core microcontroller with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth baked in. The screen is a 2.8-inch TFT (240 × 320) with resistive touch, driven by the ILI9341 controller. Add to that a microSD slot, speaker driver, RGB LED, light sensor circuit, and spare GPIOs, and you’ve got a surprisingly complete development kit.

Power comes over USB, and current draw is modest at around 115 mA. The board itself is about the size of a playing card (50 × 86 mm), small enough to slip into any project enclosure.



The CYD comes in a transparent plastic box together with a stylus and a 4-way jumper cable for one of the three small on-board extension connectors. Out of the box it runs a full-color graphical and interactive demo imitating some typical websites. It shows that he board works, but it doesn't do anything useful.

From Frustration to Fun

Like many budget boards, the CYD’s early life was defined by frustration. The hardware worked, but documentation was sparse and code examples were scarce. Enter the community: makers like Brian Lough stepped up with detailed guides and GitHub repos, while tutorials popped up on popular community sites. Suddenly, the CYD wasn’t just a yellow oddity. It became a platform. The community figured out how to configure the TFT_eSPI library, how to get LVGL (Light and Versatile Graphics Library) running for professional GUIs, and how to unlock the board’s potential for everything from data dashboards to retro games.

What Can You Build With It?

The combination of ESP32 + touchscreen + storage means the CYD shines in projects where you need both connectivity and a user interface. Popular projects include:

• IoT dashboards showing temperature, humidity, and sensor readings.
• Smart home controllers to switch lights, relays, or appliances.
• Retro gaming consoles, complete with on-screen touch controls.
• Environmental monitors, logging data to the SD card and displaying graphs.
• Travel gadgets, pulling transport or weather data from online APIs.
• And because it’s ESP32-based, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth integrations are just a few lines of code away.

Elektor Steps In

At Elektor, we love a good underdog story. Which is why we put together the ESP32 CYD Bundle, a kit that takes the raw potential of the board and surrounds it with everything you need to succeed. The bundle includes the board itself (in a neat acrylic shell), plus a USB cable, stylus, and — most importantly — a 218-page full-color project book. This book is the missing manual the community always wanted: over 40 fully tested projects that start with the basics (drawing pixels and shapes) and build up to full GUI-based applications using Arduino IDE and LVGL.

Every project comes with block diagrams, schematics, and source code — making it as much a learning journey as a development tool.

Strengths and Limitations

Let’s be clear: this is still a budget board. The resistive touch screen is functional but lacks the slick responsiveness of capacitive panels. Memory is limited compared to the latest ESP32-S3 boards. And getting libraries configured still requires a bit of tinkering.

But the flip side is huge: without shelling out many euros you’re getting an ESP32 kit with a touchscreen, SD storage, and Wi-Fi/Bluetooth backed by community knowledge and structured documentation. That’s remarkable value.

Verdict

The ESP32 Cheap Yellow Display Board is living proof that the maker community can take a rough gem and polish it into something special. What started as an obscure yellow PCB has grown into a community hero, thanks to affordability, versatility, and an ever-growing library of projects.

If you’re looking for a low-cost entry into IoT projects with GUIs, or just want to experiment with LVGL on real hardware, the CYD is hard to beat. And if you want the smoothest path from unboxing to building, the Elektor CYD Bundle is the way to go.

Sometimes, you don’t need shiny marketing or a fancy logo — just a yellow PCB, a willing community, and the spirit of experimentation.