{"id":736083,"date":"2026-06-14T11:39:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-14T11:39:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/736083\/"},"modified":"2026-06-14T11:39:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-14T11:39:13","slug":"you-too-can-run-this-adorable-pixel-aquarium-on-your-ep32-cyd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/736083\/","title":{"rendered":"You, too, can run this adorable pixel aquarium on your EP32 CYD"},"content":{"rendered":"

Summary<\/p>\n

Self-contained pixel aquarium on ESP32 CYD (Cheap Yellow Display) includes fish, plants, and drifting food.<\/p>\n

Includes 12-hour clock, NTP sync over Wi-Fi, auto-dims backlight via light sensor; works offline.<\/p>\n

Code, instructions, and features listed on GitHub to load onto the 2.8″ CYD touchscreen.<\/p>\n

If I had a nickel for every time I’ve reported on a cute aquarium app designed to run entirely off an ESP32 CYD, I’d have two nickels. It’s not a lot, but unlike how the meme goes, I don’t think it’s weird that it happened twice; in fact, I love it.<\/p>\n

It has only been a few weeks since we saw the ASCII Aquarium<\/a>, a cute little project that brought digital fish to your CYD. Now, someone else has released their own app, and this one uses pixel graphics instead.<\/p>\n

The ESP32 CYD Aquarium brings pixellated fish to your device<\/p>\n

It’ll also show you the time<\/p>\n

Over on the ESP32 subreddit<\/a>, GitHub user Lagerpun showed off their cool pixel aquarium. It runs entirely off the ESP32-2432S028, which is more affectionately known as the Cheap Yellow Display, or CYD. The CYD combines the microprocessor with a display to run things on, and as you’d guess by its name, it’s very affordable.<\/p>\n

The CYD’s main strength is that you can throw apps on it and let it run without much setup, something that the ESP32 CYD Aquarium takes advantage of:<\/p>\n

It turns one of these small 2.8 inch ESP32 touchscreens into a self-running desk aquarium: moving water, a handful of small creatures, plants, drifting food, and a 12-hour clock. Give it Wi-Fi and it syncs the time over NTP; leave Wi-Fi out and it still runs fine on its own. It also dims its own backlight using the light sensor already on the board.<\/p>\n

If you’d like to get this cute program on your own CYD, head over to the project’s GitHub page<\/a> to find the code, instructions, and a full list of features.<\/p>\n


\n \"esp32-lockbox-featured\"<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Related<\/p>\n

\t\t
\n\t\t\tThis $30 ESP32 lockbox makes for an excellent puzzle-solving treat
\n\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

Make something cool for less.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Summary Self-contained pixel aquarium on ESP32 CYD (Cheap Yellow Display) includes fish, plants, and drifting food. Includes 12-hour…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":736084,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[49,48,61],"class_list":["post-736083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/736083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=736083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/736083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/736084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=736083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=736083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=736083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}