Defective Screen?

[csoperative]

Hi there,

I’ve been using an ESP32-S3-BOX with Home Assistant for a few months and it has been working great as a local voice assistant. Recently the display stopped working — it now only shows a completely white screen. The backlight stays on, but nothing is rendered. Voice input and output still work normally.

What I see

Device powers on
Display backlight turns on
Screen remains blank/white
Mic + speaker + HA voice functions still operate fine

Troubleshooting done
Flashed multiple official demos (MP3 / GPT / Voice / Demo) → same white screen
Flashed back to Home Assistant Voice build (ESPHome)
Opened device and reseated ribbon cables — all connections look good
No obvious physical damage
Backlight suggests display driver is initializing, but UI isn't rendering

Question

Has anyone seen this recently?
Is there a known issue with the S3-Box display driver on the latest ESPHome / HA Voice builds? Should I look at getting it replaced?

Any guidance or pointers appreciated — happy to provide logs if needed.

Thanks!

ESP32-S3-BOX-3
Firmware: 25.6.1 (ESPHome 2025.6.1)

[ESP_Rachel]

Please open ESP-Launchpad: https://espressif.github.io/esp-launchp ... chpad.toml

Flash the ‘factory_test_fw-ESP-BOX-3’ firmware and check if the screen still displays correctly. If it doesn’t, the screen might be damaged.

[csoperative]

Thanks for the reply. Just re-flashed it with the version you suggested and same result. Device boots up, shows backlight but nothing on screen. I did check the ribbons so not sure what else I can do. This is only around 4 - 5 months old (and my first esp device LOL)

esptool.js
Serial port WebSerial VendorID 0x303a ProductID 0x1001
Connecting...
Detecting chip type... ESP32-S3
Chip is ESP32-S3 (QFN56) (revision v0.2)
Features: Wi-Fi,BLE,Unknown Embedded PSRAM (AP_1v8)
Crystal is 40MHz
MAC: b4:3a:45:0b:74:9c
Uploading stub...
Running stub...
Stub running...
Changing baudrate to 921600
Changed
Manufacturer: c8
Device: 6018
Detected flash size: 16MB
Warning: Image file at 0x0 doesn't look like an image file, so not changing any flash settings.
Compressed 1095184 bytes to 660020...
Writing at 0x0... (2%)
Writing at 0x13893... (4%)
Writing at 0x20aef... (7%)
Writing at 0x26e77... (9%)
Writing at 0x30cde... (12%)
Writing at 0x3890e... (14%)
Writing at 0x46a17... (17%)
Writing at 0x52d80... (19%)
Writing at 0x586fe... (21%)
Writing at 0x5efda... (24%)
Writing at 0x64aae... (26%)
Writing at 0x69e89... (29%)
Writing at 0x6efab... (31%)
Writing at 0x75313... (34%)
Writing at 0x79fc6... (36%)
Writing at 0x7f0a4... (39%)
Writing at 0x83f9a... (41%)
Writing at 0x893b3... (43%)
Writing at 0x8ebdb... (46%)
Writing at 0x93ead... (48%)
Writing at 0x9931a... (51%)
Writing at 0x9e421... (53%)
Writing at 0xa3b72... (56%)
Writing at 0xa9184... (58%)
Writing at 0xaf4f5... (60%)
Writing at 0xb4bc2... (63%)
Writing at 0xbaba5... (65%)
Writing at 0xc00c6... (68%)
Writing at 0xc5e08... (70%)
Writing at 0xce7a6... (73%)
Writing at 0xd6657... (75%)
Writing at 0xdbc96... (78%)
Writing at 0xe09d8... (80%)
Writing at 0xe517f... (82%)
Writing at 0xe9966... (85%)
Writing at 0xedfd6... (87%)
Writing at 0xf27b6... (90%)
Writing at 0xf92c7... (92%)
Writing at 0xfe6dd... (95%)
Writing at 0x103df5... (97%)
Writing at 0x109872... (100%)
Wrote 1095184 bytes (660020 compressed) at 0x0 in 8.106 seconds.
Leaving...
ESP-ROM:esp32s3-20210327
Build:Mar 2ESP-ROM:esp32s3-20210327
Build:Mar 27 2021
rst:0x15 (USB_UART_CHIP_RESET),boot:0x2b (SPI_FAST_FLASH_BOOT)
Saved PC:0x40378ca5
SPIWP:0xee
mode:DIO, clock div:1
load:0x3fce3818,len:0x514
load:0x403c9700,len:0x4
load:0x403c9704,len:0xb58
load:0x403cc700,len:0x2a8c
entry 0x403c98fc
I (181) cpu_start: Multicore app
I (181) octal_psram: vendor id : 0x0d (AP)
I (181) octal_psram: dev id : 0x03 (generation 4)
I (181) octal_psram: density : 0x05 (128 Mbit)
I (182) octal_psram: good-die : 0x01 (Pass)
I (182) octal_psram: Latency : 0x01 (Fixed)
I (182) octal_psram: VCC : 0x00 (1.8V)
I (182) octal_psram: SRF : 0x01 (Fast Refresh)
I (183) octal_psram: BurstType : 0x01 (Hybrid Wrap)
I (183) octal_psram: BurstLen : 0x01 (32 Byte)
I (183) octal_psram: Readlatency : 0x02 (10 cycles@Fixed)
I (184) octal_psram: DriveStrength: 0x00 (1/1)
I (185) MSPI Timing: PSRAM timing tuning index: 5
I (185) esp_psram: Found 16MB PSRAM device
I (185) esp_psram: Speed: 80MHz
I (223) mmu_psram: Instructions copied and mapped to SPIRAM
I (239) mmu_psram: Read only data copied and mapped to SPIRAM
I (239) cpu_start: Pro cpu up.
I (239) cpu_start: Starting app cpu, entry point is 0x4037581c
I (0) cpu_start: App cpu up.
I (781) esp_psram: SPI SRAM memory test OK
I (789) cpu_start: Pro cpu start user code
I (789) cpu_start: cpu freq: 240000000 Hz
I (790) cpu_start: Application information:
I (790) cpu_start: Project name: production_firmware
I (790) cpu_start: App version: 1
I (790) cpu_start: Compile time: Dec 12 2023 10:39:48
I (790) cpu_start: ELF file SHA256: fe378de4...
I (791) cpu_start: ESP-IDF: v5.1.2-185-g3662303f31-dirty
I (791) cpu_start: Min chip rev: v0.0
I (791) cpu_start: Max chip rev: v0.99
I (791) cpu_start: Chip rev: v0.2
I (791) heap_init: Initializing. RAM available for dynamic allocation:
I (792) heap_init: At 3FCC4B08 len 00024C08 (147 KiB): DRAM
I (792) heap_init: At 3FCE9710 len 00005724 (21 KiB): STACK/DRAM
I (792) heap_init: At 3FCF0000 len 00008000 (32 KiB): DRAM
I (792) heap_init: At 600FE014 len 00001FD4 (7 KiB): RTCRAM
I (793) esp_psram: Adding pool of 15552K of PSRAM memory to heap allocator
I (793) spi_flash: detected chip: gd
I (793) spi_flash: flash io: qio
I (794) sleep: Configure to isolate all GPIO pins in sleep state
I (794) sleep: Enable automatic switching of GPIO sleep configuration
I (795) app_start: Starting scheduler on CPU0
I (795) app_start: Starting scheduler on CPU1
I (795) main_task: Started on CPU0
I (796) esp_psram: Reserving pool of 32K of internal memory for DMA/internal allocations
I (796) main_task: Calling app_main()
I (797) gpio: GPIO[44]| InputEn: 0| OutputEn: 1| OpenDrain: 0| Pullup: 0| Pulldown: 0| Intr:0
I (801) LVGL: Starting LVGL task
I (801) gpio: GPIO[4]| InputEn: 0| OutputEn: 1| OpenDrain: 0| Pullup: 0| Pulldown: 0| Intr:0
I (802) gpio: GPIO[48]| InputEn: 0| OutputEn: 1| OpenDrain: 0| Pullup: 0| Pulldown: 0| Intr:0
I (802) ili9341: LCD panel create success, version: 1.2.0
W (922) ili9341: The 36h command has been used and will be overwritten by external initialization sequence
W (922) ili9341: The 3Ah command has been used and will be overwritten by external initialization sequence
I (924) gpio: GPIO[3]| InputEn: 1| OutputEn: 0| OpenDrain: 0| Pullup: 0| Pulldown: 0| Intr:2
I (925) GT911: TouchPad_ID:0x39,0x31,0x31
I (925) GT911: TouchPad_Config_Version:65
I (929) ES8311: Work in Slave mode
I (930) gpio: GPIO[46]| InputEn: 0| OutputEn: 1| OpenDrain: 0| Pullup: 0| Pulldown: 0| Intr:0
I (931) ES7210: Work in Slave mode
I (934) ES7210: Enable ES7210_INPUT_MIC1
I (936) ES7210: Enable ES7210_INPUT_MIC2
I (939) ESP-BOX-3: Setting LCD backlight: 70%
I (1005) button: IoT Button Version: 3.1.3
I (1005) gpio: GPIO[0]| InputEn: 1| OutputEn: 0| OpenDrain: 0| Pullup: 1| Pulldown: 0| Intr:0
I (1005) ESP-BOX: ESP-BOX initialization done.

[csoperative]

Hi there

Could you let me know how I might replace this defective screen or is it covered under warranty?

Its not very old (less than 6 months)

Thanks