To embed a binary in esp-idf I believe you need something like:

    create_resources(${CMAKE_CURRENT_LIST_DIR}/../../binaries/RAM_APP ${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/binaries.c)
    set_property(SOURCE ${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/binaries.c PROPERTY GENERATED 1)

Or using `EMBED_FILES`

I just happened to be looking at this very thing today that had to do this: https://github.com/espressif/esp-serial-flasher/blob/master/...

Go for the SPI version, which is the same chip but just s different breakout board.

Many ESP32's can only do 400kHz I2C, whereas their SPI peripheral can often do 80 MHz or more (although you wouldn't want to go that fast here). 400kHz sort of works, but if you also want to handle other I2C devices it can easily become a problem.

I really love the SSD1306 for its educational value. If you've bought a sensor kit for Arduino or ESP32 or Pico or whatever, chances are decent that you already have an SSD1306 lying around. There's so much example code for it. And the datasheet was pretty easy to grok IMO. My first exposure to it was in the pico-examples repo: https://github.com/raspberrypi/pico-examples/tree/master/i2c...

There's a few Rust libraries for it, too. And it's supported in Wokwi! https://wokwi.com/projects/425067706980448257

I really love the u8g2 library, but unfortunately I love my SSD1327 OLED even more. It supports 16-tone greyscale (which u8g2 cannot do) allowing 80s/90s video game style image dithering.

Getting up and running with lvgl was honestly kind of brutal, but now that it's done, I am generally happy with it. As you determined, it's much more of a UI toolkit than u8g2; the sort of thing designed with fancy thermostats and smart watches in mind. u8g2 has a menu toolkit but it is pretty narrow in scope.

I am planning on releasing a bare bones IDF-SDK v5.4 + lvgl 9.x + SSD1327 starter project soon so that I can hopefully save future travelers some pain.

It’s generally quite easy to use these over I2C without a driver. You can crib the sequence of initialization commands from the example code supplied by the manufacturer (or loads of examples on GitHub), and then the commands to draw to the screen are pretty straightforward. The chip has its own display RAM, so you don’t need to worry about redrawing every time the display refreshes or anything as low-level as that.