Inky Impression (7 color ePaper/eInk/EPD) Pimoroni

Bold, will hold! Inky Impression is a big, beautiful, 5.7″, 600 x 448 pixel 7 color electronic paper (ePaper / eInk / EPD) display for Raspberry Pi.

This display is considerably bigger than Inky wHAT (check out the comparison photo!) with plenty of screen real estate for text or graphics. The low power consumption e-paper display is crisp and readable in bright sunlight and the image will persist when unpowered. In a first for the Inky series, we’ve also added four tactile buttons so you can control what’s on the screen without the need for extra hardware. The buttons are side-press, so they’re accessible even if the display is mounted on a wall.

But the best bit is that this time you get seven whole colors to play with, which means this Inky is very suitable for displaying graphics, drawings or art – we’ve found pixel art, panels from comics and retro video game art look particularly good.

We can think of tons of uses for this lovely display – its size makes it ideal for displaying detailed graphs and charts from weather stations and sensors. You could build your own e-ink reader, or set it up as a digital dashboard for your kitchen with calendar info and reminders. It would also make a nice rotating display for showing off children’s art (or your own art!).

Please note that Inky Impression takes around 15 seconds to refresh the screen, so is best suited to projects that don’t rely on constant screen updates.

Features

• 5.7″ EPD display (600 x 448 pixels)
• E Ink Gallery Palette™ 4000 ePaper
• ACeP (Advanced Color ePaper) 7-color with black, white, red, green, blue, yellow, orange.
• Ultra wide viewing angle – >170°
• Dot pitch – 0.1915 x 0.1915mm
• 40-pin female header included to boost height for full-size Pis
• Standoffs included to securely attach to your Pi
• Additional pins, including I2C and SPI, broken out
• Compatible with all 40-pin header Raspberry Pi models*
• Python library
• Comes fully assembled

Multi-color EPD displays, like the one on Inky Impression, use ingenious electrophoresis to pull colored particles up and down on the display. The colored particles reflect light, unlike most display types, meaning that they’re visible under bright lights. It takes approximately 15 seconds to refresh the display.

Everything comes fully-assembled, and there’s no soldering required! The display is securely stuck down to the Inky Impression PCB and connected via a ribbon cable. Just pop Inky Impression on your Pi and run our installer to get everything set up!

We’ve also broken out some handy pins including I2C and SPI, on the back of Inky Impression, letting you connect additional devices like Pimoroni’s breakouts and allowing you to show their data right on the display.

Inky Impression will work with any version of the Pi with a 40 pin header*, including Pi Zero and Pi Zero W (*though if you want to use it with a Raspberry Pi 400, you’ll probably also want to pick up a GPIO extender cable).

Software

Pimoroni’s Python library takes the stress out of displaying text and images on Inky Impression, and they’ve put together a few new examples to show off Inky Impression’s capabilities. They’ve put together a one-line-installer for the Python library too, to make installation a little more straightforward:

curl https://get.pimoroni.com/inky | bash

Notes

• The Inky Impression display is made from glass so it’s pretty fragile. Be careful not to drop it or press too hard on it, or it will crack. When fitting it to your Pi, grip at the edges of the board rather than pressing on top of the screen.
• We got best results from this display when refreshing it at an ambient room temperature, if the screen is cold you might find that the colors are less vibrant. Solidarity to our chilly production team who discovered this!
• Overall dimensions: 125.4 x 99.5 x 9mm (WxHxD, depth includes header and display)
• Display usable area dimensions: 114.9 x 85.8mm (WxH)
• Licensed Image: Bobbi Freelance / Pixels.com