Elecrow CrowPanel Advance: 7-inch smart display with ESP32-P4 and broad IoT support launches

The manufacturer Elecrow already sells some smart displays and has now added another product in this segment. It’s called the CrowPanel Advance with the ESP32-P4. Basically, this gadget a display and a development board, so this system can be used more or less autonomously. Specifically, it’s equipped with a 7-inch IPS touch panel with a resolution of 1024 x 600 pixels. The typical brightness is specified as 400 nits.

Some tinkering required

This smart display from Elecrow is powered by an ESP32-P4NRW32, which has significantly less performance than typical desktop CPUs. However, it’s enough to display custom interfaces, among other things. It’s possible to use the ESP-IDF as well as the Arduino IDE, while LVGL should allow users to design graphical interfaces relatively easily.

For instance, the smart display can be used to show data like current humidity or temperature. The touchscreen can be useful switching between different views or control a thermostat. That being said, the CrowPanel Advance does require some additional effort and tinkering. Ready-to-use products like the Echo Show 8 might be a better choice for regular users without much technical knowledge.

Many connectivity options

The smart display can be powered by a battery. Otherwise, a permanent power supply can be set up via USB. Wireless networks can be accessed via 2.4GHz WiFi, and the CrowPanel Advance also supports Bluetooth 5.3 and BLE, as well as ZigBee, LoRa, nRF2401, Matter and optionally Thread. GPIO pins are available for hooking up sensors and actuators. Lastly, the gadget can also be equipped with a camera, an optional 2MP increases the price from $45.90 to $53.90. The model variant with the ESP32-S3 is also available on Amazon UK.