Silard Gal's VESA ESP Puts an Espressif ESP32-S3 on the Back of Any VESA-Compatible Display

Hardware engineer Silard Gal has designed an Espressif ESP32-S3 microcontroller development board with a difference: the PCB includes a VGA video output and mounting points compatible with the VESA standard — meaning it can hang off the back of most monitors.

"The primary goal is to develop a microcontroller with VGA output — a notable achievement — that mounts on the back of monitors as a VESA-compatible device for a streamlined, space-saving design," Gal explains of the project. "For practicality, it’s designed to mount on the back of monitors using a plate PCB compatible with VESA holders, ensuring a space-efficient setup."

The project is based around the Espressif ESP32-S3 microcontroller, a device with two Tensilica Xtensa LX7 microcontroller cores running at up to 240MHz, 512kB of internal static RAM (SRAM), and 2.4GHz single-band IEEE 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5 Low Energy (BLE) radios. What it doesn't normally include is a video output — but that didn't stop Gal.

Gal's project hinges on a library released by YouTuber Matthias "bitluni" Balwierz two years ago, which uses general-purpose input/output (GPIO) pins on the ESP32-S3 to drive a VGA output at resolutions up to 800×600 with a 60Hz refresh rate and a 16-bit color depth or as high as rising to 1280×720 with an eight-bit color depth.

For this, Gal has designed a custom development board in an unusual shape — to bring its mounting points in-line with those of the VESA monitor mounting standard, meaning the board can be attached to the back of any VESA-compatible display for a tidier desk. The first prototype has proven the concept — including making sure that monitor arms and mounts can still be used alongside the board — with a v1.1 revision planned to reduce costs through optimizing the bill of materials, add microcontroller flashing support over USB Type-C alongside power, and make the input connectors harder to connect incorrectly.

The project is documented on Hackaday.io; at the time of writing, no design files had yet been released.