Screen Saver

When playback is paused and paused dimming is enabled, the device uses a two-stage screen saver to reduce power consumption and prevent burn-in. All settings are configurable from the device's web settings page. You can open it by visiting the device IP address directly in your browser, or from the device in Home Assistant under Settings → Devices & Services → ESPHome by clicking Visit.

How it works

1. Dimming — If Dim when idle is on, after Dim After elapses (default: 60 s), the screen dims to the day or night dimmed brightness level.
2. Idle action — If Screen Saver: Enabled is on, after Screen Saver: Timer elapses (default: 300 s), the selected day or evening screen saver runs:
   • Clock shows a large HH:MM clock.
   • Screen Off turns the display fully off.
   • Disabled leaves the display at the dimmed level.

If Screen Saver: Enabled is off, the screen saver options are hidden and the display stays at the dimmed level after the dimming stage.

Any touch or new media playback instantly returns the display to full active brightness.

Clock screen saver

The optional clock screen saver displays the current time in large, thin digits on a black background. Choose Clock as the day or evening screen saver to use it.

Set Clock Format to choose 24-hour time or 12-hour time. The 12-hour clock does not show AM/PM, keeping the digits compact enough for the clock to keep drifting for burn-in prevention.

The clock position drifts subtly each minute across a small region to prevent burn-in. Brightness is controlled independently for day and evening clock screen savers (default: 35%).

Night Schedule

Night Schedule can turn the display fully off outside a daily time window. For example, an On Time of 6:00 AM and an Off Time of 8:00 PM keeps the screen available during the day and turns it off overnight.

Touching the screen during the off period wakes it temporarily. When Woken, Idle Time To Screen Off controls how long it stays awake before returning to scheduled screen-off.

Day/Night awareness

Brightness levels and screen saver behavior adapt automatically based on whether it is currently "day" or "night":

• Daytime — uses Day: Active Brightness, Day: Dim Brightness, and Daytime Screen Saver.
• Evening — uses Night: Active Brightness, Night: Dim Brightness, and Evening Screen Saver.

This lets you configure different behavior for day and night — for example, showing the clock during the day but turning the screen off at night. On the ESP32-P4, Screen Tone warmth also follows the same day/night detection, so album art can shift warmer at night.

By default, the device reads the sun.sun entity in Home Assistant (sun above horizon = day, below horizon = night). You can override this with any binary_sensor or input_boolean entity by setting Day/Night Source on the web settings page.

Custom day/night sensor

To use your own logic for day vs night:

1. Create a binary_sensor or input_boolean helper in Home Assistant that reflects your preferred day/night state (on = day, off = night).
2. Open the settings page by visiting the device IP address directly in your browser, or go to the device in Home Assistant under Settings → Devices & Services → ESPHome and click Visit. Enter the entity ID in Day/Night Source — for example, binary_sensor.daytime or input_boolean.is_daytime.
3. The device will immediately start using the custom sensor instead of sun.sun.

To revert to the default sun-based behavior, clear Day/Night Source.

This is useful when you want day/night to depend on more than just the sun — for example, room lighting levels, party mode, or a time-based schedule.

Settings

Timers

Setting	Description	Default
Dim when idle	Enables screen dimming when playback is paused.	On
Dim After	Time after playback pauses before the screen dims.	60 s
Screen Saver: Enabled	Enables the clock/off screen saver step after dimming.	On
Screen Saver: Timer	Time after dimming before the screen saver activates.	300 s

Clock

Setting	Description	Default
Daytime Screen Saver	What happens after the idle timer during the day: Clock, Screen Off, or Disabled.	Clock
Evening Screen Saver	What happens after the idle timer in the evening: Clock, Screen Off, or Disabled.	Clock
Day Clock Brightness	Backlight level for the daytime clock screen saver.	35%
Evening Clock Brightness	Backlight level for the evening clock screen saver.	35%
Clock Format	Clock display format: 24-hour or 12-hour without AM/PM.	24 Hour
Timezone	IANA-style timezone for the clock and scheduled screen-off controls. The browser shows the current GMT offset.	UTC

Night Schedule

Setting	Description	Default
Screen: Schedule Enabled	Enable the daily screen-off schedule.	Off
Screen: Schedule On Hour	Hour when the screen becomes available again.	6
Screen: Schedule Off Hour	Hour when the screen turns off for the schedule.	20
Screen: Schedule Wake Timeout	Temporary wake duration during scheduled off hours.	60 s

Brightness

Setting	Description	Default
Day: Active Brightness	Screen brightness during active use (daytime).	100%
Night: Active Brightness	Screen brightness during active use (nighttime).	80%
Day: Dim Brightness	Screen brightness when dimmed (daytime).	35%
Night: Dim Brightness	Screen brightness when dimmed (nighttime).	25%

Idle actions

Setting	Description	Default
Daytime Screen Saver	Daytime action after dimming and the idle timer. Options: Clock, Screen Off, or Disabled.	Clock
Evening Screen Saver	Evening action after dimming and the idle timer. Options: Clock, Screen Off, or Disabled.	Clock