ClaudeGauge — Real-time AI usage monitor on ESP32-S3 with a

ClaudeGauge — Real-time AI usage monitor on ESP32-S3 with a Star Trek LCARS interface

Hey r/esp32!

I built a tiny desk gadget that shows real-time Claude AI usage stats on an ESP32-S3 display, wrapped in a Star Trek LCARS-inspired UI. It's fully open-source and I'd love contributors.

What it does:

• Tracks API spending (today + monthly) in USD
• Shows token usage broken down by model (input, output, cached)
• Claude Code analytics: sessions, commits, PRs, lines modified
• Rate limit monitoring with live countdown timers
• System health: WiFi, memory, uptime, firmware version
• 7 dashboard screens you cycle through with a button press

Hardware supported:

• LILYGO T-Display-S3 — 1.9" parallel display, USB-C, dual buttons + touch
• Waveshare ESP32-S3-LCD-1.47 — 1.47" SPI display, USB-A, single button

Both boards are cheap ($25-40) and easily available.

Tech stack:

• PlatformIO + Arduino framework
• TFT_eSPI with full-screen PSRAM sprite for flicker-free rendering
• Captive portal for WiFi/API key setup (no hardcoded credentials)
• Vercel Edge Function proxy (ESP32 can't connect to claude.ai directly — Cloudflare blocks mbedTLS fingerprints)
• Chrome extension for session key auto-fill
• WYSIWYG layout editor for designing custom screens

Some ESP32 gotchas I ran into:

• If you're using TFT_eSPI in SPI mode on ESP32-S3, you MUST add -DUSE_FSPI_PORT to your build flags or you'll get a crash in begin_tft_write(). Took me a while to figure that one out.
• Cloudflare Workers don't work as a proxy either — only Vercel (Fastly-based TLS) gets through to claude.ai.

Looking for contributors!

The project is MIT-licensed and there's plenty of room to help:

• Support for additional ESP32 display boards
• New dashboard screen layouts
• Improving the LCARS designer tool
• Adding support for other AI provider APIs (OpenAI, Gemini, etc.)
• General firmware improvements and bug fixes

Links:

• GitHub: https://github.com/dorofino/ClaudeGauge
• Website: https://claudegauge.com

If you've got one of these boards sitting around, give it a try and let me know what you think. PRs and issues welcome!