There’s a lot to like about this little remote, which is based upon a LilyGo TTGO ESP32 board with on-board display. The circuitry is basically that and a rotary encoder plus a tiny LiPo battery.

M5Dial programmable touch screen, rotary controller is perfect for home automation projects 6:38 am November 12, 2023 By Julian Horsey ...

He ended up exploring hard drive motors as encoders, and while the results aren’t exactly high resolution, he may be onto something. Starting with a teardown of some old HDDs — save those magnets!