The heart of the project is the CrowPanel Advance, a compact and versatile device with esp32 that serves as the assistant's user interface. It's connected via WiFi to a dedicated AI server that I set up on an old laptop, which runs the Ollama software. This is the magic part: Ollama allows me to run powerful large language models locally, so all the processing happens right there.

Turning the CrowPanel Touchscreen into a DIY Laptop Drawing Board In this project, I'm using the CrowPanel Advance 7" touchscreen display along with an ESP32 microcontroller to build a custom drawing tablet that communicates with my laptop. The idea is simple: when I touch the CrowPanel, the ESP32 reads the touch coordinates and sends them in real time to my computer. This allows the panel to work like a sketchboard or basic graphics tablet — perfect for quick drawings, annotations, or testing out touch-based interfaces.