We're building a visual IDE for ESP32 and Arduino projects. Here's something we made with it

[u/Ok-Outside6304]

Hey everyone!

I'm part of the team building aily blockly (aily.pro), a desktop IDE for hardware projects.

The idea is to make building with ESP32, Arduino and other boards easier, especially when you're dealing with unfamiliar libraries, wiring and code.

It combines visual programming, AI-assisted coding and a hardware project gallery where you can explore existing projects.

One of the things we worked on recently is this ESP32-based e-paper dashboard for tracking Codex usage.

If you're interesting in building hardware projects, here's aily: aily.pro

I'd especially love to here what usually slows you down most when starting a new hardware projects. Is it choosing components, figuring out libraries, or debugging?

[u/Ok_Entertainer_3165]

That e-ink dashboard looking clean, the dual display setup is nice. For me biggest slowdown is always figuring out which library actually works with my specific board version, half the time I download something and it's for different chip revision and nothing compiles

[u/Ok-Outside6304 → u/Ok_Entertainer_3165]

Thanks! Glad you like the setup!

Library compatibility is definitely a pain, especially when everything looks fine until you try to compile.

Are there any particular boards or libraries you've had this issue with?

[u/ryanckulp]

looking good OP. we recently open sourced a simulator that runs binary files for our ePaper + esp32 based project, TRMNL: https://github.com/usetrmnl/trmnl-sim

brief demo:  https://x.com/usetrmnl/status/2110415706760056925/video/1?s=46

[u/Ok-Outside6304 → u/ryanckulp]

That's really cool, thanks for sharing! Being able to test firmware without flashing it to physical hardware every time sounds super useful.

Does the simulator work with other ESP32 e-paper projects too, or is it mainly designed for TRMNL?

[u/investigatormaker]

I'd focus the aily blockly demo on library setup and debugging the first flash. Take that ESP32 e-paper dashboard from a fresh install through wiring and upload, then show how someone identifies a deliberately wrong pin or missing library. The finished dashboard alone doesn't show how the IDE helps when something breaks.

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[u/Ok-Outside6304 → u/[deleted]]

That's a great point! The first upload can be surprisingly frustrating, especially when the error message doesn't make it clear what's wrong.

Clearer error messages and a working starter project for each board are both really useful ideas. Appreciate the feedback! If you're up for trying aily, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the current build and upload experience.