M5Stack PaperDIY: a $25 ESP32-S3 kit with a 4.7in e-paper screen

PaperDIY is M5Stack's October 2026 follow-up to its 2020 M5Paper: an ESP32-S3 development kit built around a 4.7-inch, 960x540 e-paper panel (ET047TC1) with 16 levels of grey. The board uses an ESP32-S3-WROOM-1-N16R8 module (16 MB flash, 8 MB octal PSRAM, 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi), adds a microSD slot, USB-C, a power button plus two user buttons, two 12-pin FPC expansion connectors and M5Stack's M5PM1 power-management chip, which watches the battery and switches the e-paper boost circuit. There are two versions. The M5Stack PaperDIY Assembly Kit is the bare board, panel, acrylic pressure plate and 140 mAh battery that you put together yourself, listed at $25 on the M5Stack store. The PaperDIY Complete Kit ships factory-assembled in a 3D-printed PLA case (the case files are open source) and was listed at $29.90 but out of stock on October 20. Unlike the old M5Paper, the screen is not touch, and there are no onboard sensors. On the software side M5Stack supports the Arduino IDE with its M5Unified and M5GFX libraries plus an M5PM1 library, publishes ESP-IDF factory-firmware source with examples for the battery, Wi-Fi scan, microSD and buttons, and has a UiFlow2 tutorial. M5Stack pitches it for desk information displays, electronic labels and signage. If you want the same panel with other options, CNX Software points to the LilyGO T5 4.7 inch E-Paper S3 Pro, which uses the same ET047TC1 display and ESP32-S3. One warning from M5Stack's docs: the Complete Kit's M2 mounting holes need screws with less than 3 mm of thread, or you can press into and permanently damage the e-paper.