1 - Command station. HARDWARE - ESP-32 board ( device not critical ) a good start might be be one of the TTGO S£ T-Display boards.
a - The designated Command station should be able to marshal messages to each or all of the outstations.
b - Configuration of the the system in a predetermined file to be stored withing non-volatile ( flash ) . The config will hold items such as a number and a name for each of the ( ESP NOW ) connected outstations.
c - outstations should be periodically polled to determine if they are "visible" and access to a flag made available to allow the User to know when and outstation is not communicating.
d - A lightweight messaging protocol should be available allowing the controller to i - send 2control2 messages to the outstations - these messages might be used to set the configuration of the outstations or generally issue non data messages. ii - broadcast a data message to all stations or iii - broadcast a data message to a particular station iv receive simple data messages from outstations v respond to data links either way with an acknowledge.
The controller in this instance will be a marshaling device between the ESP NOW transport and the messaging protocol and a USB terminal program.
2 - Outpost stations. HARDWARE - LILYGO 4.7" E-Paper display ( Lipo or 1480 battery not critical atm as I am looking at the software layer first )
a - Accept and store configuration from a persistent flash file. b- Config Landscape or Portrait mode. c- Display messages sent from the controller. Content, position and font are determined within the transmitted message.
The e-Paper display should have available several ( 2 or 3 ) fixed size small fonts ( ie 10-12 to 24pt or so ) it should also have the ability to display a very large font. 20mm - 25mm Where only 1 to 3 characters are displayed on a line. A small grid of "boxes" containing a blank, a cross ,dash , slash or filled box is also required ( these could be sent as character icons )
A full display would consist of a combination of smaller texts and several larger characters where the smaller texts are on different lines to the larger characters.
For example, in portrait mode 2 lines of text in smaller characters are followed by a single line of 2 large characters and a symbol ( = + . or similar ) followed by a bottom matrix of 5 lines by 5 of the box characters.
Further details will be disclosed on completion of an NDA and initial quotation on budget and timescale.
Preference given to those who can source their own hardware locally ( to be refunded on completion )
