Experimental

ESP-KVM terminal

Firmware for the M5Stack Tab5 that shows an ESP-KVM device's screen on the Tab5. Touch, the Tab5 keyboard or a USB keyboard and mouse control the target. No browser, no computer: a KVM console you hold in one hand.

The code and the releases Vote: would you use it?

An M5Stack Tab5 with its keyboard, showing the same desktop as the laptop screen behind it, mouse pointer included. — The Tab5 in front, the target's own screen behind it. In the video a clip plays on the laptop, to show how the picture keeps up over Wi-Fi.

An experiment. The Tab5 has the same ESP32-P4 as the KVM, so I wanted to see what it could do with it. I do not know yet how many people want one, or how well it works day to day outside my desk. It works for me. If you try it, or decide you would never use it, I would like to hear either.

What it does

What	How	Status
Wi-Fi	Through the Tab5's ESP32-C6; remembers the network.	Works
Finding devices	ESP-KVM devices on the network show up by themselves (mDNS).	Works
Sign-in	A device's certificate is trusted only after you check its fingerprint.	Works
The picture	MJPEG, up to about 20 fps at 1280×720.	Works
Tailscale	About 11-14 fps on my network.	Works
Reconnecting	When the device or the network drops.	Works
Touch	Touch as the pointer or a trackpad, two-finger scroll, pinch to zoom up to 8×.	Works
Keyboards	The M5Stack Keyboard for Tab5, or a USB keyboard and mouse.	Works
Extra keys	Esc, F1-F12, the arrows; Ctrl, Alt, Win and Shift held for the next key.	Works
Target power	Power, reset, Wake-on-LAN, Ctrl+Alt+Del.	Works
The Tab5 itself	Sleep, brightness, battery level; turns over when held upside down.	Works
Several saved networks	Up to five; the strongest one in range is joined.
Updates	From GitHub releases, with a way back after a bad one.
2FA sign-in	A code from an authenticator app.
Several devices	Switching between them, forgetting one.
Text mode	The target's screen read as characters.

What it needs

M5StackTested Tab5 ESP32-P4 + ESP32-C6M5Stack

M5StackTested Keyboard for Tab5 I2C keyboardM5Stack

An M5Stack Tab5. The Keyboard for Tab5 is optional: without it an on-screen keyboard appears.
An ESP-KVM device on the same network, or on the same tailnet.
The device's video codec set to MJPEG. The Tab5's chip has no H.264 decoder, and decoding it in software gives about 4 fps.

Installing it

Each release on GitHub has two files. espkvm-term-merged.bin goes onto a Tab5 at address 0x0 and replaces what is there, M5 Launcher included. espkvm-term.bin is for M5 Launcher: copy it to the SD card and install it from there. After that the Tab5 updates itself from its TERMINAL screen. Building from source needs ESP-IDF 6.1 and the espkvm repository next to it; the README has the steps.