The project contains the following hardware and software components:

The wheel module is designed to be low power and is responsible for measuring how long each wheel revolution takes.

Hardware components:

• Seeed Studio XIAO ESP32-C6
• US5881 unipolar Hall effect sensor
• magnet attached to a wheel spoke
• 5V DC-DC boost converter
• LiPo battery

Software responsibilities:

• configure wake-up sources for the ULP (ultra low-power) core
• detect Hall sensor triggers
• measure the time interval between wheel revolutions
• buffer measurements in RTC memory
• wake the HP (high-performance) core when data must be transmitted
• send data to the main module using ESP-NOW

The main module is the central processing and UI unit.

Hardware components:

• Seeed Studio XIAO ESP32-S3
• 2.8” LCD module with ILI9341 controller
• XPT2046 touchscreen controller
• SD card reader
• LiPo battery

Software responsibilities:

• receive wheel cadence data from the wheel module
• compute metrics such as speed and distance
• display metrics and menus using LVGL
• store persistent data using NVS (non-volatile storage)
• connect to an Android phone over BLE
• load map tiles from the SD card and render them on screen

The Android phone acts as an external data source for the maps feature.

Responsibilities:

• pair with the bike computer over BLE
• provide current location data to the main module

The high-level interaction flow is the following:

1. The wheel module detects wheel revolutions using the Hall effect sensor.
2. It buffers timing data locally.
3. At predefined moments, the wheel module transmits the buffered data to the main module over ESP-NOW.
4. The main module receives the packet, computes user-facing metrics and updates the LCD interface.
5. When the user opens the maps tab, the main module connects to the Android phone over BLE, receives location data, loads the necessary map tiles from the SD card, and displays the current position.

• 1x Seeed Studio XIAO ESP32-C6
• 1x US5881 unipolar Hall effect sensor
• 1x 10uF 50V X7R capacitor
• 1x 100nF 50V X7R capacitor
• 1x DC-DC 5V boost converter
• 1x 3.7V 500 mAh LiPo battery (902030)
• 1x JST 2.0 cable connector
• 1x 10k ohm pull-up resistor

• 1x Seeed Studio XIAO ESP32-S3
• 1x 2.8" LCD module: ILI9341 LCD + XPT2046 touch controller + SD card reader
• 1x 10uF 50V X7R capacitor
• 1x 100nF 50V X7R capacitor
• 1x 3.7V 2000 mAh LiPo battery (103450)
• 1x JST 2.0 cable connector

The wheel module is mounted on the bike fork. A magnet attached to a wheel spoke passes near the Hall effect sensor once per wheel revolution. The sensor output is connected to the microcontroller, which measures the time between triggers.

Because the US5881 operates at a voltage higher than the 3.3V rail used by the ESP32-C6, a DC-DC boost converter is used to provide 5V to the sensor. This is not ideal from a power-consumption perspective, but it was chosen because the sensor is easy to source and integrates well in this proof-of-concept design.

The ESP32-C6 uses both its high-performance core and its ultra-low-power core in order to reduce overall energy consumption.

A 10uF bulk capacitor is used for stabilizing the 3.3V rail. A 100nF decoupling capacitor is used for the US5881 sensor, as per its datasheet.

The main module is mounted on the handlebars. It contains the display, touch interface, SD card access, wireless communication, and persistent metric storage using ESP-IDF NVS.

The LCD, touch controller, and SD card reader all use the SPI bus. To save pins, they share the same SPI clock, MOSI, and MISO lines, while each device has its own chip-select line.

The display module is powered via the 3.3V rail, which is stabilized using a 10uF bulk capacitor. A 100nF decoupling capacitor is placed between the display module's VCC and GND pins.

• The LCD, touchscreen controller, and SD card reader share a single SPI bus, but individual chip-select lines are used.
• GPIO3 is used as the LCD D/C pin. Since it is also a strapping pin on the ESP32-S3, the external circuit connected to it must not force an invalid boot state. If abnormal boot behavior is observed, this pin assignment should be reconsidered or the external circuit should be adjusted so it does not interfere with the required boot strapping state.
• GPIO43 and GPIO44 are typically associated with UART functionality. In this project, GPIO43 is assigned to the LCD backlight, therefore the debugging and console output through these pins will not be available.
• GPIO1 is used as a wake-up input for user interaction after the device enters sleep mode.

The firmware is developed using:

• ESP-IDF as the main framework
• Visual Studio Code with the ESP-IDF extension
• C and C++ as the primary programming languages
• standard ESP-IDF build tools for flashing, monitoring, and configuration

• ESP-IDF drivers and services
  • GPIO
  • SPI
  • NVS (Non-Volatile Storage)
  • BLE
  • Wi-Fi / ESP-NOW
  • sleep and power-management APIs
  • SD card support
• LVGL
  • used for user interface rendering
• Squareline Studio
  • used for designing the UI

The wheel module uses both the HP core and the ULP core of the ESP32-C6.

1. The HP core boots and configures the wake-up sources for the ULP core, then goes to deep sleep.
2. The ULP core can wake up either:
   1. periodically, from a timer
   2. from the Hall sensor GPIO trigger
3. If the wake-up source is the Hall sensor:
   1. the ULP core measures the interval since the previous wheel revolution
   2. it stores the value in RTC memory
4. If the wake-up source is the timer:
   1. the ULP core updates a timeout counter
   2. if several timer wake-ups occur without wheel movement, the wheel is assumed to have stopped
   3. in that state, periodic transmission can be reduced and the timer source can be disabled until motion is detected again
5. After enough intervals have been buffered, or after a predefined timeout, the ULP core signals the HP core.
6. The HP core wakes up, reads the shared data from RTC memory, builds a packet, and sends it to the main module using ESP-NOW.
7. The HP core then returns to deep sleep.

The ULP and HP cores communicate through shared variables placed in RTC memory. These variables contain:

• buffered revolution intervals
• metadata such as counters or status flags

• lower power consumption than keeping the HP core active all the time
• efficient use of the ESP32-C6 low-power capabilities
• reduced wireless transmissions by batching multiple measurements

The main module firmware is responsible for computation, rendering, storage, and communication.

• receive packets from the wheel module using ESP-NOW
• compute bike metrics:
  • current speed
  • trip distance
  • trip average speed
  • trip time
  • total distance
• show metrics through a touchscreen interface
• allow the user to change settings such as:
  • wheel circumference
  • metric / imperial units
• store persistent metrics in non-volatile storage
• connect to an Android phone over BLE
• load and render map tiles from the SD card

The user interface is implemented with LVGL. The planned UI contains at least the following tabs:

• Metrics tab
  • current speed
  • trip distance
  • trip average speed
  • trip time
  • total distance
• Maps tab
  • current user position
  • visible map tiles rendered on screen
• Settings tab
  • wheel circumference
  • unit system
  • brightness
  • sleep timeout
  • reset trip button
  • other future settings

The ESP-NOW packets contain a sequence number. The main module uses it to discard duplicate packets, ignore old packets for real-time speed display, and still account for valid out-of-order packets when updating accumulated metrics such as distance and total time.

Some values, such as total distance or trip statistics, need to survive resets and power cycles. These values are stored in NVS.

To avoid excessive write frequency and premature flash wear:

• values are first buffered in RAM
• the persistent storage is updated only at a predefined interval, or when necessary

The maps feature is designed as follows:

• the user enters the Maps tab
• the main module pairs with the Android phone over BLE
• the phone provides current location data
• the firmware determines which map tiles are needed
• the tiles are loaded from the SD card
• the tiles are rendered together with the current position marker

The tile system is based on the slippy map format.

To reduce CPU overhead:

• map tiles are preprocessed offline
• instead of storing PNG files that require runtime decoding, tiles are stored in a raw format such as RGB565
• this allows direct rendering to the display

The XIAO ESP32-S3 has a single 2.4 GHz radio, so BLE and ESP-NOW must share the same radio hardware. The firmware relies on radio coexistence support in order to allow both features to operate in the same system.

After a predefined period of inactivity:

• the display backlight is turned off
• the main module enters deep sleep

The device can be woken up through the dedicated touch input.

Planned firmware mechanisms:

• interval buffering
  • an array / circular buffer of wheel-revolution intervals
• timeout-based motion detection
  • repeated timer wake-ups without sensor events indicate that the bike has stopped
• metric computation
  • speed is computed from wheel circumference and revolution interval
  • distance is computed from the number of wheel revolutions
• tile selection
  • determine the subset of map tiles that cover the current visible screen area
• deferred persistent writes
  • maintain dirty flags and update NVS at controlled intervals

This section will be updated after implementation.

TBD

• Seeed Studio XIAO ESP32-C6
• XIAO ESP32-C6 Wiki
• Seeed Studio XIAO ESP32-S3
• XIAO ESP32-S3 Wiki
• US5881 Hall Effect Sensor
• ILI9341 + XPT2046 + SD Card display module
• DC-DC 5V Boost Converter

• ESP-IDF
• LVGL Documentation
• OpenStreetMap
• Slippy Map Tile Format

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