Inkyphat

Les Pounder loves a good book and can be found reading on his e-ink enabled e-reader, but now he’s the able to create his own e-ink display!

- Les Pounder

E-ink displays, typically those found inside Kindles, have been with us for over a decade. They offer a low-power method of displaying information, but the trade-off is a slow screen refresh. E-ink displays have been seen on the Raspberry Pi before, from Percheron Electronics and Pi Supply, but they were still only available as a two colour display (black and white.) But we now have a three colour e-ink display from Pimoroni: Inkyphat.

Inkyphat, as its name suggests, has been designed with the smaller Pi Zero HAT form factor in mind. It comes fully assembled, and connects to all 40 pins of the GPIO (general purpose input output). This means that it’ll work with all models of Raspberry Pi from B+ onwards. If you wish to use the board with an older Raspberry Pi then this is possible, because Inkyphat uses the SPI protocol to communicate with the Pi, but a GPIO header extension is required due to the older 26-pin GPIO being close to an AV output that blocks the board from a direct connection.