Animated eyes with ESP32 and round 1.28″ TFT display

With one AZ-Delivery ESP32 Dev Kit C, two round GC9A01 TFT displays (240×240), a breadboard with 830 contacts and a few jumper cables, you can recreate the animated "eyes" we showed on TikTok in just a few minutes.

The project shows how to connect a round TFT display to the ESP32, how to configure the popular TFT_eSPI library and how to render smooth, customizable eye animations.
The software comes from this GitHub repository and uses TFT_eSPI. GitHub

The following products of the project are included in the bundle:

• 1× AZ-Delivery ESP32 Development Board (Dev Kit C).

• 2× Round 1.28" TFT display 240×240 with GC9A01 driver (often listed as "GC9A01 / GC9A01A").

• 1× Breadboard 830 pins

• Jumper cable 

These products are additionally required depending on the implementation:

• USB cable (data-capable) + computer with Arduino IDE.

What you will learn

• Wiring a GC9A01-based round TFT with ESP32 SPI pins
• Configuration of TFT_eSPI for 240×240 circular panels
• Efficient rendering of eye animations and adding custom designs
• Scaling from one to two synchronized displays

To the project video