Never Miss a Holiday with This $5 ESP32 Countdown Timer

The snow has begun to melt and spring is undeniably in the air. Do you know what that means? That’s right! It’s time to start counting down the days until Christmas! Too early for you? Well, maybe you’re just not feeling holly jolly enough. And if that’s the case, Daniel Spitzer has got just what you need to get in the holiday spirit.

Spitzer has created a holiday countdown timer that will tell you how many days are left until not only Christmas, but any other holidays you want to track as well. The hardware design is simple: a sub-$5 Cheap Yellow Display (CYD) was installed in a 3D-printed case with a stand. The CYD comes equipped with an ESP32 microcontroller, so it contains everything the project needs.

The firmware connects to an NTP server to keep the current time set correctly. The present date is then compared with a set of preprogrammed holidays to determine how many days remain before the big day. Users can select that holiday they are waiting for, and the display will show a countdown.

If you want to put one of these countdown timers together for yourself, it couldn’t be much easier. Spitzer has provided a link to the specific CYD that was used, and the firmware and 3D design files have all been made publicly available on GitHub. Go grab ‘em and get hacking!