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Nextion is a Human Machine Interface （HMI） solution combining an onboard processor and memory touch display with Nextion Editor software for HMI GUI project development.

Using the Nextion Editor software, you can quickly develop the HMI GUI by drag-and-drop components (graphics, text, button, slider, etc.) and ASCII text-based instructions for coding how components interact on the display side.

Nextion HMI display connects to peripheral MCU via TTL Serial (5V, TX, RX, GND) to provide event notifications that peripheral MCU can act on, the peripheral MCU can easily update progress, and status back to Nextion display utilizing simple ASCII text-based instructions.

This post is an introduction to the Nextion display with the Arduino. We’re going to show you how to configure the display for the first time, download the needed resources, and how to integrate it with the Arduino UNO board. We’ll also make a simple graphical user interface to control the Arduino pins.

Nextion is a Human Machine Interface (HMI) solution. Nextion displays are resistive touchscreens that makes it easy to build a Graphical User Interface (GUI). It is a great solution to monitor and control processes, being mainly applied to IoT applications.

The Nextion has a built-in ARM microcontroller that controls the display, for example it takes care of generating the buttons, creating text, store images or change the background. The Nextion communicates with any microcontroller using serial communication at a 9600 baud rate.

To design the GUI, you use the Nextion Editor, in which you can add buttons, gauges, progress bars, text labels, and more to the user interface in an easy way. We have the 2.8” Nextion display basic model, that is shown in the following figure.

The best model for you, will depend on your needs. If you’re just getting started with Nextion, we recommend getting the 3.2” size which is the one used in the Nextion Editor examples (the examples also work with other sizes, but you need to make some changes). Additionally, this is the most used size, which means more open-source examples and resources for this size.

To get started with Nextion, first you need to install Nextion Editor. Go to https://nextion.itead.cc/, select the Resources tab, Download > Nextion Editor and install Nextion Editor. You can either download the .zip file or the .exe file.

Connecting the Nextion display to the Arduino is very straightforward. You just need to make four connections: GND, RX, TX, and +5V. These pins are labeled at the back of your display, as shown in the figure below.

You can power up the Nextion display directly from the Arduino 5V pin, but it is not recommended. Working with insufficient power supply may damage the display. So, you should use an external power source. You should use a 5V/1A power adaptor with a micro USB cable. Along with your Nextion display, you’ll also receive a USB to 2 pin connector, useful to connect the power adaptor to the display.

The best way to get familiar with a new software and a new device is to make a project example. Here we’re going to create a user interface in the Nextion display to control the Arduino pins, and display data.

The user interface has two pages: one controls two LEDs connected to the Arduino pins, and the other shows data gathered from the DHT11 temperature and humidity sensor;

We won’t cover step-by-step how to build the GUI in the Nextion display. But we’ll show you how to build the most important parts, so that you can learn how to actually build the user interface. After following the instructions, you should be able to complete the user interface yourself.

Open Nextion Editor and go to File > New to create a new file. Give it a name and save it. Then, a window pops up to chose your Nextion model, as show in the figure below.

We’ll start by adding a background image. To use an image as a background, it should have the exact same dimensions as your Nextion display. We’re using the 2.8” display, so the background image needs to be 240×320 pixels. Check your display dimensions and edit your background image accordingly. As an example, we’re using the following image:

All components have an attribute called objname. This is the name of the component. Give good names to your components because you’ll need them later for the Arduino code. Also note that each component has one id number that is unique to that component in that page. The figure below shows the objname and id for the slider.

You should trigger an event for the touchable components (the buttons and the slider) so that the Arduino knows that a component was touched. You can trigger events when you press or when you release a component.

Notice that we have labels to hold the units like “ºC”, “ºF” and “%”, and empty labels that will be filled with the readings when we have our Arduino code running.

Once the GUI is ready, you need to write the Arduino code so that the Nextion can interact with the Arduino and vice-versa. Writing code to interact with the Nextion display is not straightforward for beginners, but it also isn’t as complicated as it may seem.

A good way to learn how to write code for the Arduino to interact with the Nextion display is to go to the examples folder in the Nextion library folder and explore. You should be able to copy and paste code to make the Arduino do what you want.

The first thing you should do is to take note of your components in the GUI that will interact with the Arduino and take note of their ID, names and page. Here’s a table of all the components the code will interact to (your components may have a different ID depending on the order you’ve added them to the GUI).

In this post we’ve introduced you to the Nextion display. We’ve also created a simple application user interface in the Nextion display to control the Arduino pins. The application built is just an example for you to understand how to interface different components with the Arduino – we hope you’ve found the instructions as well as the example provided useful.

In our opinion, Nextion is a great display that makes the process of creating user interfaces simple and easy. Although the Nextion Editor has some issues and limitations it is a great choice for building interfaces for your electronics projects. We have a project on how to create a Node-RED physical interface with the Nextion display and an ESP8266 to control outputs. Feel free to take a look.

Nextion displays include either a resistive touch panel (RTP) or capacitive touch panel (CTP) and provide an easy way to create a touch screen interface, or human machine interface (HMI) for your project. The displays require a spare serial port to communicate with them. To get the best from them requires an understanding of how to drive them, and what works and doesn"t work. The advice here is based on my work with multiple projects using Nextion displays with both PIC and Arduino hosts. I don"t claim the ideas here are the best way or the only way to control one with an Arduino, just what I have found to work well in my projects. The sample code has been written by me and tested on an Elegoo Mega2560, and you are free to use it, modify or improve as much as you like. My methods and the examples shown here do not use any libraries as I never found them necessary, the displays are easy enough to drive without a library.

If you prefer to use a library have a look at Easy Nextion Library by Seithan, his methods are different to mine, choose which works best for you (I cannot help you with Seithan"s methods).

The displays have their own instruction set which can be found here.The instructions provide the means to control the displays either through messages sent to the serial port or from using the touch screen. This tutorial and sample code uses some of the Nextion instructions and assumes you have made yourself familiar with them from the Nextion web site.

I have used the basic 4.3" RTP version (NX4827T043) and the enhanced 7" CPT version (NX8048K070) with a WeMos M0, MKR WiFi 1010, Nano Every and Elegoo Mega2560 without problems. There are problems using one with an ESP8266, see "using Nextion displays with Arduino part 4" further down this tutorial. If you have a Uno then you could try John Harrison"s SerialWing, which allows the single serial port on the Uno to be shared with the display, and provides a separate serial port to configure the display. I have not tried other versions or other Arduinos. As the only requirement is a spare serial port on the Arduino to connect the display to, I would expect that any Arduino with a spare serial port would work with any Nextion display, but I"ve not tried combinations other than those mentioned here.

Note, Arduinios use one serial port for communication with your PC, do not use this serial port for connection to your Nextion display, use a spare one.

The displays run off 5v. All the ones I have output 3.3v on their serial transmit (blue wire). I have not had any problems using them with a WeMos M0 at 3.3v, an Elegoo Mega2560 at 5V or a PIC running on 5v. However, please check the voltage on the display transmit (blue) wire is not higher than maximum voltage your Arduino can tolerate.

To connect a Nextion to an Arduino you need one free serial port on the Arduino. Connect the TX from the Arduino to the yellow wire and the RX to the Arduino to the blue wire. You will also need 0v to the black wire and +5v to the red wire. The current drawn by the display depends on the model and how bright the back light is. The 7" CPT display NX8048K070 requires up to 550mA, the smaller ones less. The 4.3" NX4827T043 used for this tutorial draws 235mA. In my experience they generate quite a bit of noise on the supply and, although not essential, I recommend a 470μF (or larger) capacitor across the supply soldered to the connector on the back (see reply #68 for more about this).

This demonstration was created for the basic 4.3" RTP version, NX4827T043. You can adapt my configuration for a different display using the Nextion editor.

Open the attached file "Arduino Nextion demo 43V1.HMI" with the Nextion editor. If you are using a smaller display move the position of any objects that are outside the display area of the smaller display by changing X and Y for each object to a value that puts the object inside the boundaries of your display. Once you have done this select DEVICE ID from the menu and select your display from the list. If you have a bigger display you don"t need to move anything around, just select the correct device ID.

Nextion is a Seamless Human Machine Interface (HMI) solution that provides a control and visualisation interface between a human and a process, machine, application or appliance. Nextion is mainly applied to IoT or consumer electronics field. It is the best solution to replace the traditional LCD and LED Nixie tube.

Nextion includes hardware part (a series of TFT boards) and software part (the Nextion editor). The Nextion TFT board uses only one serial port to communicate. It lets you avoid the hassle of wiring. We notice that most engineers spend much time in application development but get unsatisfactory results. In this situation, Nextion editor has mass components such as button, text, progress bar, slider, instrument panel etc. to enrich your interface design. And the drag-and-drop function ensures that you spend less time in programming, which will reduce 99% of your development workloads. With the help of this WYSIWYG editor, designing a GUI is a piece of cake.

Nextion Editor(Official Download) is a development software used for visual building of graphic interface for embedded GUI-intensive devices with various types of TFT displays and Touch Panels. Using this tool, users can start creating TFT based devices in a faster and easier way.

In the future, Nextion Editor will provide a set of examples intended to speed up your work and creation process. Examples are fully-comented and explained, thus allowing a quick start in designing user interface. Browse through the given examples and learn how to create GUI application with minimum of time and effort.

Etouch Technology Co., Ltd (Etouch) was established in 2008, is a professional manufacturer on design, production and sales of capacitive and resistive touch screen , LCD, Raspberry PI LCD and membrane switch, PCB keypad, rubber keypad, FPC keypad, acrylic lens, overlays and other technology products . We mainly for industrial control, car navigation, household appliances, medical equipment , human-machine-Interface system, POS , bank system, gaming, etc . Our factory is near by the beautiful scenery of the Songshan Lake, and the existing plant area is more over 7000 square meters.

Nextion is a Seamless Human Machine Interface (HMI) solution that provides a control and visualisation interface between a human and a process, machine, application or appliance. Nextion is mainly applied to IoT or consumer electronics field. It is the best solution to replace the traditional LCD and LED Nixie tube.

Nextion includes hardware part (a series of TFT boards) and software part (the Nextion editor). The Nextion TFT board uses only one serial port to communicate. It lets you avoid the hassle of wiring. We notice that most engineers spend much time in application development but get unsatisfactory results. In this situation, Nextion editor has mass components such as button, text, progress bar, slider, instrument panel etc. to enrich your interface design. And the drag-and-drop function ensures that you spend less time in programming, which will reduce 99% of your development workloads. With the help of this WYSIWYG editor, designing a GUI is a piece of cake.

Nextion Editor(Official Download) is a development software used for visual building of graphic interface for embedded GUI-intensive devices with various types of TFT displays and Touch Panels. Using this tool, users can start creating TFT based devices in a faster and easier way.

In the future, Nextion Editor will provide a set of examples intended to speed up your work and creation process. Examples are fully-comented and explained, thus allowing a quick start in designing user interface. Browse through the given examples and learn how to create GUI application with minimum of time and effort.

NEXTION is a Human Machine Interface（HMI）solution combining a TFT touch display with an onboard processor and memory, develop using the free and downloadable NEXTION Editor software.

Using the NEXTION Editor software, you can quickly develop the HMI GUI by drag-and-drop components (graphics, text, button, slider etc.) and ASCII text based instructions for coding how components interact at display side. With just 2 wires (RX,TX), NEXTION display quickly connects to MCU via 5V TTL Serial to provide event notifications that MCU can act on, and utilizes simple ASCII text based instructions so the MCU can easily provide progress and status updates back to your HMI user.

Nowadays home automation is a trending topic among electronic enthusiasts and even the mass population. People are busy with their life challenges, so an electronic device should take care of the home instead! The majority of such devices need internet or Wi-Fi for connectivity or they don’t offer a user-friendly GUI, but I decided to design a standalone wireless monitoring/controlling unit that can be adjusted using a graphical and touch-controlled LCD display.

The device consists of a panelboard and a mainboard that communicate using 315MHz (or 433MHz) ASK transceivers. The panel side is equipped with a high-quality 4.3” capacitive-touch Nextion Display. The user can monitor the live temperature values and define the action threshold (to activate/deactivate the heater or cooler), humidity (to activate/deactivate the humidifier or dehumidifier), and ambient light (to turn ON/OFF the lights). The mainboard is equipped with 4 Relays to activate/deactivate the aforementioned loads.

To design the schematic and PCB, I used Altium Designer 23. The fast component search engine (octopart) allowed me to quickly consider components’ information and also generate the BOM. To get high-quality fabricated boards, I sent the Gerber files to PCBWay. I used the Arduino IDE to write the MCU code, so it is pretty easy to follow and understand. Designing a GUI using the Nextion tools was a pleasant experience that I will certainly follow for similar projects in the future. So let’s get started :-)

The heart of the circuit is the IC1 (ATMega328 microcontroller) [4], the same chip as the Arduino Nano. I used a 16MHz crystal for the clock source. C9 ... C13 are decoupling capacitors. The ISP is a 5-pin male pin header to connect an ISP programmer (such as the USBasp or similar) to burn the HEX file into the chip. R1 is a 10K pull-up resistor for the Reset pin, to avoid unwanted triggering of the Reset (active-low).

There is a high similarity between the circuit of the panelboard and the mainboard, the main difference is the Nextion display connector. The Nextion display uses the UART or Serial interface. C16 and C17 are decoupling capacitors.

You must install several external libraries to be able to modify and re-compile the code if you like. The first one is the Adafruit SHTC3 library [8], the second is the RadioHead Packet Radio library [9], the third is the TaskScheduler library [10], and the last one is the Easy Nextion library [11]. I have provided the complied HEX file for the panelboard [12] and the mainboard [13] as well. Below is the code for the panelboard.

As I mentioned earlier, you should use an external AVR ISP programmer (such as the cheap USBasp [14], official Atmel programmer, or whatever similar) to program the microcontroller of both the panelboard and the mainboard. That’s why I have provided an ISP interface for the boards. To compile the code, you should select Arduino Nano in the “board” selection menu. To generate the HEX file, you can press Ctrl + Alt + S.

As it is clear in the YouTube video, I used a 4.3” Nextion HMI Display, Intelligent Series (Model: NX4827P043-011C-Y) [15]. The TFT file is available for download [16]. You must copy-paste this file into a MicroSD card and upgrade the Flash memory of your Nextion Display. There are many tutorials about this, so I skip this step. Figure 7 shows a picture of this display.

Figure 8 shows the assembled PCB boards and the Nextion display. The smallest component package size is 0805, you shouldn’t have any problem in soldering the components, however, if you have some difficulties to purchase the components or there is no time for hand soldering, you can order the boards assembled.

OverviewNextion is a Human Machine Interface （HMI） solution combining an onboard processor and memory touch display with Nextion Editor software for HMI GUI project development. Using the NEXTION Editor software, you can quickly develop the HMI GUI by drag-and-drop components (graphics, text, button, slider, etc.) and ASCII text-based instructions for coding how components interact at the display side. Nextion HMI display connects to peripheral MCU via TTL Serial (5V, TX, RX ,GND) to provide event notifications that peripheral MCU can act on, the peripheral MCU can easily update progress, and status back to Nextion display utilizing simple ASCII text-based instructions. Comparing with Basic Series, the Discovery Series has a better MCU performance, the same functionalities as Basic, and Lower Price. That’s Nextion Discovery Series Products.

The reason for the request is that "SONOFF NSPanel Smart Scene Wall Switch" (Kickstarter campaign by ITead) is apparently based on an ESP32 and a Nextion touch screen display.

As I understand all Nextion displays as their own integrated microcontroller unit (STM32GO ARM Cortex-M0+ 64MHz Onboard MCU Processor) so that will off-load most of the heavy lifting work and all text and graphics, animations, etc. are created using Nextion Editor software, and then then the project files/assets are uploaded directly into the Nextion screen. The screen then has serial commands mapped to UI elements and can be sent and received from ESPHome firmware to control it.