EspHoMaTriX version 2 (EHMTXv2)

Important

Each esphome release is packed with new features and suprises (breaking changes), so it is hard to stay up to date for me. Each user can decide which version of esphome he uses. So there is not one combination of esphome, ehmtx and yaml that fits all.

So ehmtx is prone to breaking on every esphome update.

My suggestion is:

Keep esphome up to date with the latest official version!

Which are:

• Branch 2025.12.0 for esphome 2025.12.0- (some internal details)
• Branch 2025.10.3 for esphome 2025.10.0- (fixed path problem)
• Branch 2025.7.1 for esphome 2025.4.0- (some fixes "empty queue")
• Branch 2025.6.1
• Branch 2025.6.0 for esphome 2025.6.0- (some fixes and PRs from andrewjswan)
• Branch 2025.5.2 for esphome 2025.4.0- (some fixes "empty queue")
• Branch 2025.5.1 for esphome 2025.4.0-
• Branch 2025.2.1 for esphome 2025.2.0- (optimized handling of transparent icons)
• Branch 2025.2.0 for esphome 2025.2.0-
• Branch 2024.12.1 for esphome 2024.12.0-...

For ehmtx use the newest version tag by manually editing the ref tag in the external_componets section in your yaml. Only change your selected ehmtx version if there are compile errors. But expect manual changes to your yaml or even your automations.

The details to each EspHoMaTriX version are on the branch pages

external_components:
  - source:
      #type: local
      #path: EsphoMaTrix/components # e.g. /config/esphome/components
      type: git
      url: https://github.com/lubeda/EspHoMaTriXv2
      ref: 2025.7.1
    refresh: 60s 
    components: [ ehmtxv2 ]   

Features

Based on a 8x32 RGB matrix, it displays a clock, the date and up to 24 other 'screens' provided by Home Assistant. Each screen (value/text) can be associated with a 8x8 bit RGB icon or GIF animation (see installation). The values/text can be updated or deleted from the display queue. Each screen has a lifetime, if not refreshed in its lifetime, it will disappear. Even 8x32 GIF animations are possible. You can control nearly everything of the component.

Advice

It is highly recommended to use an ESP32 device. There are conditions where the RAM size is too limited in a ESP8266 device so some of the features had to be removed for these boards (Example: bitmap_screen).

EspHoMaTriX in the media

See this German tutorial video with information on setting up your display RGB-LED Status Display für Home Assistant mit ESPHome | ESPHoMaTrix.

Another german tutorial video focused on the Ulanzi Smarte Pixel Clock über Home Assistant steuern - Entitäten / Icons und mehr in der Ulanzi

See this nice article about EsphoMaTrix on a Ulanzi TC001 from blakadder.

Short video on Instagram @blak_adder

See these english discussions: Share your projects ESPHOME

It was also mentioned in the blog Building the Open Home and in the home assistant livestream

Or in German: Showroom

Disclaimer

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, use at your own risk!

Thanks

See all the coding heroes in the newest branch!

• blakadder for his contribution (cleanup README.md, fixed sample)
• dbuezas for his fonts infos
• jfurtner for his the on_start_running trigger and a new parameter
• andrew-codechimp for his contribution (display on/off & del_screen "*" & show_clock with 0) and improved blueprint slelection
• jd1 for his contributions
• aptonline for his work on the Ulanzi hardware
• wsbtak for the work on the Ulanzi hardware
• ofirsnb for his contributions
• trip5 for his work on optimized fonts and user support and work on the wiki
• pplucky for his 8x32 GIF animation
• dennisse Auto brightness for the Ulanzi
• hco fixing documentation
• geekofweek fixed sample YAML, cleanup documentation
• joncar fixed scroll small text
• Everybody who found bugs/issues and reported them!

Special thanks to all the sponsors