A tiny on-screen goblin gets weaker the longer its maker sits at a desk. That is the idea behind the Chair Goblin Tamagotchi: an ESP32-based display, an mmWave presence sensor, Home Assistant and ESPHome turn chair occupancy into a reminder to get up. The project is a maker’s personal experiment, not a tested health intervention—and its original article does not include enough hardware or code detail to reproduce it exactly.
How the Chair Goblin Tamagotchi works
The project turns time spent in an office chair into a simple virtual-pet game. According to the maker’s account, sitting causes the goblin’s health to decline, and its appearance changes as it becomes frailer. If the pet dies, the maker starts again. The planned reward for a full week of getting up and moving around at least once per hour is an evolution.
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The intended signal path has three parts:
- Detect chair-zone presence: An mmWave sensor monitors an area around the office chair.
- Pass the state along: Home Assistant shares presence information with the display through ESPHome.
- Show the game: A Cheap Yellow Display (CYD), an ESP32-based color touchscreen board, presents the character and its changing state.
The project article says its author used Codex to generate ESPHome YAML, but does not publish that configuration or a complete build guide. The precise automations and timing rules behind health loss, death, reset and evolution are therefore not established.
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The account identifies broad hardware categories, not a verified bill of materials. It does not name the CYD revision or mmWave sensor, nor provide wiring, power requirements or code. A similar build is plausible, but copying the idea is not the same as duplicating the original setup.
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- Match software to the actual board. ESPHome requires its configured ESP32 variant to match the hardware. The ESPHome ESP32 platform documentation describes the original ESP32’s capabilities, including Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
- Check the display and touch hardware. “CYD” does not identify one universal configuration. A separate ESPHome and Home Assistant CYD project documents an ESP32-2432S028 variant with a 2.8-inch ILI9341 display and XPT2046 resistive touch. Those are specifications for that documented example, not confirmation of the maker’s board.
- Choose and configure a sensor deliberately. The project does not identify its mmWave model or report detection accuracy. ESPHome’s LD2410 documentation is one supported option to investigate, not evidence that the Chair Goblin uses an LD2410. Sensor placement and zone settings matter if the goal is to track a chair rather than general room occupancy.
- Plan device onboarding. Home Assistant supports automatic discovery and manual setup for ESPHome devices. Its ESPHome integration instructions cover the host and native API encryption settings used during setup.
What the project does—and does not—show
The maker reports that seeing the goblin grow frail, and wanting to reach its evolution, encouraged them to take breaks. That is a personal account of motivation; the article reports no controlled test or measured health outcome. It does not establish that the device improves health or will change other people’s habits.
For a reproducible build, important details remain unspecified: source code and ESPHome YAML, exact board and sensor models, wiring, power, room layout, and the game’s thresholds and reset behavior. Those choices would need to be worked out and tested for a particular setup rather than inferred from the project description.
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Why the idea is still useful
The appealing part is the feedback loop: a normally invisible state—how long someone has remained in a chair—becomes a character with a visible consequence. The project shows one way to connect presence sensing, Home Assistant and an ESP32 display for a playful desk reminder. Treat the goblin as a maker’s experiment, not a substitute for individualized health advice or a validated break schedule.
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Quick Recap
Best Value
- 2.4GHz Dual Mode WiFi + Bluetooth Development Board
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