ICNT86 support for I2C component

[Minikea]

Describe the component you'd like

could you bring the ICNT86 chip into esphome?
used by WAVESHARE 2.9inch Touch e-Paper HAT for touchscreen.

What are your use cases for this component?

it's the I2C part used for a touchscreen. the touchscreen itself may be GT911 compatible, but I can not test that.

Is there a public datasheet, documentation and/or schematics?

you can find this chip used in waveshare :
https://www.waveshare.com/wiki/2.9inch_Touch_e-Paper_HAT_Manual
https://www.waveshare.com/wiki/Pico-CapTouch-ePaper-2.9

it seems the I2C respond to 0x48.

Anything else?

logs:

[15:58:24][I][logger:165]: Log initialized
[15:58:24][C][safe_mode:082]: There have been 6 suspected unsuccessful boot attempts
[15:58:24][D][esp32.preferences:142]: Writing 1 items: 0 cached, 1 written, 0 failed
[15:58:24][I][app:090]: Running through setup()
[15:58:24][C][component:164]: Setup spi took 1ms
[15:58:24][I][i2c.idf:191]: Performing bus recovery
[15:58:24][C][component:164]: Setup i2c took 37ms
[15:58:24][C][component:164]: Setup preferences took 0ms
[15:58:24][C][component:164]: Setup homeassistant.time took 0ms
[15:58:24][C][component:164]: Setup copy.sensor took 0ms
[15:58:24][C][component:164]: Setup touchscreen took 1ms
[15:58:24][D][esp-idf:000]: E (907) i2c.master: I2C hardware NACK detected
[15:58:24][D][esp-idf:000]: E (908) i2c.master: I2C transaction unexpected nack detected
[15:58:24][D][esp-idf:000]: E (908) i2c.master: s_i2c_synchronous_transaction(945): I2C transaction failed
[15:58:24][D][esp-idf:000]: E (908) i2c.master: i2c_master_execute_defined_operations(1366): I2C transaction failed
[15:58:24][D][esp-idf:000]: E (914) i2c.master: I2C hardware NACK detected
[15:58:24][D][esp-idf:000]: E (914) i2c.master: I2C transaction unexpected nack detected
[15:58:24][D][esp-idf:000]: E (924) i2c.master: s_i2c_synchronous_transaction(945): I2C transaction failed
[15:58:24][D][esp-idf:000]: E (934) i2c.master: i2c_master_execute_defined_operations(1366): I2C transaction failed
[15:58:24][E][component:296]: touchscreen set Error flag: Calibration error
[15:58:24][E][component:204]: touchscreen was marked as failed

[ssieb]

That's a known i2c issue. Try using the .3 release.

[Minikea]

That's a known i2c issue. Try using the .3 release.

Hello,
thanks for your quick reply.
If you mean the last 2025.8.3 release, I'm already with this release.

I use ESPHome in Home assistant. OS (up to date).
I use this NodeMCU-32S board
is there a workaround to this issue?
I just see this comment, I will try it.

[Minikea]

for reference, the workaround frequency: 400 didn't work.
but the

external_components:
 - source: github://esphome/esphome@2025.7.1
   components: [i2c]
   refresh: never

did.
so the .3 release do not completely correct the bug found in 2025.8.0.
now I must find which platform to use because gt911 do not seems to be the one.

[danepowell]

There was a PR to add support that was abandoned: esphome/esphome#5960

I've been using the feature branch from that PR (see the last comment for how to try it yourself), it seems to work fine. I'll look into opening a new PR; I wish I knew why it was abandoned 🤷

[Minikea]

@danepowell
with ESPHome > 2026.06, I can't use this workaround anymore:

external_components:
 - source: github://esphome/esphome@2025.7.1
   components: [i2c]
   refresh: never

because of this error:
module 'esphome.config_validation' has no attribute 'only_with_esp_idf'
So I used this as instructed in the PR:

external_components:
  - source: github://pr#5960
    components: [ icnt86, touchscreen ]

but any touch on the screen spams the logs with
[D][icnt86:047]: Touch count: 1
and no more touch is possible.
it seems to be the same bug commented about in the review:
https://github.com/esphome/esphome/pull/5960/changes/BASE..f83cfa8d63c9251cf862970239c5315db4e2d248#r1547485266
I tried without the workaround, but the result is the same.
Minikea/esphome@42ac970
I am not skilled enough to debug this code so I let you make the changes and make a new PR.

[danepowell]

I've posted a PR that rebases the code on dev, try it instead: esphome/esphome#18331

external_components:
  - source:
      type: git
      url: https://github.com/danepowell/esphome
      ref: 409d0123a950979ac7cb02a15f6470d1984bb2e8
    components: [ icnt86, touchscreen ]
touchscreen:
  - platform: icnt86
    id: my_touch
    i2c_id: bus_a
    interrupt_pin: GPIO21
    reset_pin: GPIO22
    address: 0x48
    on_touch:
      then:
        - lambda: |-
            ESP_LOGD("touch", "Touch event: x=%d y=%d", touch.x, touch.y);

I saw the exact bug you referenced, and I apologize that I can't recall exactly how I fixed it, but I did fix it and it is working for me with a Waveshare 2.90inv2 E-Paper HAT using the config above.

[Minikea]

the only major difference I see in your code is this

I had this from a previous test in my yaml, is this still relevant?

    calibration: 
      x_min: 0
      x_max: 296
      y_min: 0
      y_max: 128
    transform:
      swap_xy: true
      mirror_y: true

tested with your code and without the calibration/transform and it seems to work. thanks!
I made only one change to your code to be able to not import the touchscreen class and work with upstream:
Minikea/esphome@567f629

[danepowell]

I've updated my PR to remove the touchscreen component override: esphome/esphome#18331

It might accelerate getting it merged if you can post your approval on the PR.

In most cases, calibration shouldn't be required; the component uses sane defaults from the display. I'm not sure if that's true for all icnt86 / display integrations.

I do use this since I set a rotation on the display:

transform:
  mirror_x: true
  mirror_y: true