Already set up?
Plug the board in and load what it has now, then change just the bits you want. This keeps the stops, networks and passwords you’re not changing. Passwords and keys never come back off the board, so their boxes stay empty, and empty means “keep the saved one”.
1 Board basics
2.4GHz only — the ESP32-S3 has no 5GHz radio. This is the single most common reason a board will not connect.
Everything on this page stays in your browser. Nothing is sent anywhere — the settings go straight down the USB cable to your board.
More WiFi networks (optional)
Say home, the office and a phone hotspot. Whenever it connects, the board joins the strongest of these it can see. Hidden networks are not used.
Home Assistant (optional)
Gives Home Assistant a light for the screen, buttons to change panel and refresh, and sensors for what it’s showing. Turning the screen off from HA overrides the hours above — which is the point, if a motion sensor is what decides.
An IP address. A .local name needs mDNS,
which the board does not do — it fails exactly like a dead broker.
Leave both blank if your broker allows anonymous access.
Everything the board publishes hangs off this. The default suits all but the busiest brokers.
2 What it shows
The board cycles through everything you turn on, one screen at a time.
Buses
TfL publishes London arrivals openly, so a London board needs no account and refreshes every 30 seconds.
Up to four stops, each its own screen, e.g. both sides of the road, or stops a few minutes apart that go to different places.
River boats
Uber Boat by Thames Clippers (RB1/RB4/RB6) and the Woolwich Ferry. RB2 (Tate to Tate) is not published by TfL, so it cannot be shown.
London Underground
One line in one direction per screen, because a station like King’s Cross has six lines running both ways and the screen holds three trains. Add up to two more below and the board cycles through them, splitting the Tube’s time between them. Needs no key, like the bus and river feeds.
Weather
Current conditions for wherever you picked above — there is nothing else to set. Uses Open-Meteo, which like the TfL feeds needs no key.
Big clock
Just the time, filling the screen. Needs nothing configured — the board keeps its clock right over the internet.
3 Look and timing
Custom colours
The board’s panel is 16-bit, so the preview shows the exact shade it can actually draw — which may differ very slightly from the one you pick.
4 Preview
Roughly what the 320×170 panel will show, at actual proportions.
5 Put it on the board
Brand-new board? Start at step 1. Board already running Departure Buddy? Go straight to step 2 — unless you are updating, in which case step 1 does both.
Needed once on a board that has never run this before, and again whenever there is a firmware update. It writes the firmware and then carries straight on into step 2, so normally this one button does everything. Takes about a minute.
Your existing settings on the board are kept — flashing replaces the program, not the configuration.
Board not in the list your browser shows? A brand-new T-Display-S3 runs LilyGo's own demo — it shows LilyGo-AABB and asks for the EspTouch app — and that program never switches the USB port on, so nothing appears to pick. Hold the BOOT button, plug the cable in, let go, then press this again. Once this firmware is on the board it starts its own USB port every time, so you only need that once. Other reasons a board doesn't appear.
Sends everything above to a board that already has the firmware. This is the one to use whenever you change what it shows. If step 1 finished but could not carry on by itself — the board reappears as a new device when it restarts — press this and pick the board again.
Plug the board in first, then pick it from the list your browser shows. Your settings never leave this computer.
Your browser can’t talk to USB devices
Setting a board up from here needs Chrome, Edge or Opera on a desktop. Firefox and Safari have no Web Serial support at all, so there is nothing this page can do from them — switching browser is the quickest fix. If you would rather not, the command-line tools in the repository do the same job from a terminal.
Doing it another way
This page is static and the firmware is open, so nothing here is the only route. Build it yourself, script it, or change what it shows — it is all in the repository, along with a command-line installer that takes the settings file below.
Heads up: this file contains your WiFi password in plain text, so a tool can set the board up without you retyping anything. Keep it somewhere sensible and delete it when you’re done.