ESP32 Sonos Touch Panel

Dedicated Sonos touchscreen controller using a Sunton ESP32 display and ESPHome.

Overview

This project implements a dedicated Sonos controller using a Sunton ESP32-2432S028 2.8 inch touchscreen display with ESPHome integrated into Home Assistant.

The panel displays:

• Sonos playback state
• Track title
• Artist name

It also provides touch controls for:

• Previous track
• Play / Pause
• Next track
• Volume down
• Volume up

This repository documents the stable working version of the project.

Proven result

The screenshot above shows the current stable interface running on the device after installation and configuration.

Stable status:

• display fully working
• touchscreen mapping working
• Sonos controls working
• title and artist display working
• long-title handling working
• accent handling stabilized enough for daily use
• sleep mode with clock working
• touch wake working
• no sleep while music is playing
• sleep after 30 seconds when playback is not active

Hardware

Tested with:

• Sunton ESP32-2432S028

Main features:

• ESP32 microcontroller
• 2.8 inch TFT display
• XPT2046 touchscreen controller
• integrated SPI display interface

Software stack

• ESPHome
• Home Assistant
• ESP-IDF framework

Project structure

.
├── LICENSE
├── README.md
├── TROUBLESHOOTING.md
├── images
│   └── screen.jpeg
└── esphome
    ├── sunton-2432s028r-sonos.yaml
    └── secrets.example.yaml

ESPHome configuration

Main configuration file:

esphome/sunton-2432s028r-sonos.yaml

This file contains:

• display configuration
• touchscreen calibration
• Sonos Home Assistant integration
• Unicode text normalization
• touch button mapping
• standby clock
• screen sleep and wake handling

Home Assistant entity

The configuration uses the Sonos entity:

media_player.arc

If your Sonos entity has a different name, replace all occurrences of:

media_player.arc

inside the YAML configuration.

Configuration

Copy the example secrets file:

cp esphome/secrets.example.yaml esphome/secrets.yaml

Then edit it with your WiFi credentials:

wifi_ssid: "YOUR_WIFI"
wifi_password: "YOUR_PASSWORD"

Interface layout

Normal mode:

• SONOS ARC header
• playback state
• track title
• artist
• PREV / PLAY / NEXT
• volume minus / plus

Standby mode:

• low brightness clock
• date
• touch to wake

Sleep logic:

• screen stays awake while Sonos is playing
• screen sleeps after 30 seconds only when Sonos is not playing

Power supply

For battery usage, the simplest and most reliable option is to use a standard USB power bank.

Advantages:

• no custom wiring
• safe and stable
• easy to recharge
• no dedicated battery electronics required

A custom 18650 battery power design is possible, but it is not developed in this project.

Notes

Stable reference version:

• display works correctly
• touchscreen mapping works
• Sonos commands work
• text normalization handles most metadata issues
• sleep mode works without changing touch zones

Unicode handling: Sonos metadata sometimes contains typographic characters such as apostrophes or accents. The YAML includes a normalization function to reduce display artifacts.

GPIO warnings: ESPHome may warn about strapping pins such as GPIO12. This is expected on this board and does not affect normal operation.

Flashing

1. Copy the YAML file to your ESPHome configuration folder:

   /config/esphome/sunton-2432s028r-sonos.yaml
   

2. Ensure secrets are configured.

3. Install the device from ESPHome Builder in Home Assistant.

Git workflow

Typical workflow:

git add .
git commit -m "Update configuration"
git push

Roadmap

Planned future improvements:

• screen auto brightness
• wake/sleep refinements if needed
• optional volume indicator
• optional LVGL version later

At this stage, the project intentionally keeps the current stable battery guidance simple: use a USB power bank rather than a dedicated battery circuit.

License

MIT