What display should I choose for the Raspberry Pico? Pimoroni, Waveshare, SSD1306, LCD1602... (EN)

**GERMAN VERSION: • Welches Display sollte... **
The Raspberry PICO is a great little microcontroller. Especially since the W (WIRELESS) version is available, many applications are possible.
Often desired for this: A good display!
So I'll look at 5 displays and tell you which one I would take for the Pico:
1. 1.14" Pimoroni Pico Display Pack (IPS 240x135 )
2. 0.96" SSD1306 (OLED 128x64 )
3. 1.8" Wavesahre (LCD 160x128)
4. 1.5" SEGMENT 1602 (LCD 16x2)
5. 0.91" Waveshare (OLED 128x32)
#filmoracertifiedcreative #madewithfilmora #wondersharefilmora

[@styanax]

I bought the waveshare 1.3 inch screen with the joystick and 4 buttons attached, and i am having a blast with it. i barely know anything about coding, so I had to take apart a lot of code from what you get with it as well as public code like graphics displays, but once you figure out most of the little knacks it's great. maybe I should've gone for the pimoroni but the joystick is a huge advantage and gives me lots of opportunity for games and minimal setup. additionally you can get a different font but it is very hard to find on the internet.

[@typxxilps]

Luckily I found this overview minutes before I would have purchased a Waveshare e-ink 576 x 358 or what ever with 4 colors to show the current solar production. I have watched the series about that before but I am still wondering how to get the most important tibber prices of today onto such a low power eink display which should always stay on or be visible and updated maybe once every hour just to show some most recent data like current solar power generation and of cause the SOC.
Current issue is that tibber is offering api access for those who have registered in germany but that does not mean you will be able to benefit. You get the prices of tomorrow and todays only if you have signed a contract. Maybe there is another source that offers these prices.
For the last 30 days or so there is a chart for every PLZ about the prices for every hour, so 24 h x 30 days or 720 data points.
You can find it on a Seite I will put in a reply cause yt might consider to delete the comment otherwise

[@typxxilps]

first try regarding the tibber data collector for germany
hopp PÜNKT-CHEN la SCHRÄ-GER tibber SCHRÄ-GER strom PÜNKT-CHEN php
Will be funny to read but for all those that would call it non sense try to replace the PÜNKT-CHEN with a sign used at the end of the sentence and the SCHRÄ-GER needs the key used for a division in math .
Not sure if this comment will stay or been rejected but if it stays you would have access to the power prices at the exchange in Leipzig of the past 30 days and every hour which has become a new offer for german citizens to buy directly with all the risks involved but also all the gains you might get from a direct purchase.

[@mimivrc4148]

I got a pimoroni pico display pack to use with my project over a $7 OLED monochrome sh1106 display and the pimoroni pico display pack is lacking a LOT of functions the sh1106 has. spent an entire night trying to make use of it and it just lacked sooo much in it's library. I spent hours trying to find a simple way to blit to the framebuffer and couldn't get it. where the sh1106 was just "display.blit(activity, 64, 0, 0)". duno how likely they are to ever add more functionality to it but I was pretty disappointed

[@Sir-Real]

Thanks for sharing this. I was not that disappointed with the Pimoroni lib and wondering that the 1106 was more powerful, but if I have time, I will take a closer look.

[@mimivrc4148]

@@Sir-Real Yeah, check out the framebuffer library for it. it's suuuper easy to do something like this
enabledSprite = LoadSprite('enabled.PBM', width=16, height=16)
def LoadSprite(filename, width, height):
# print(file)
with open(filename, 'rb') as f:
f.readline() # magic number
f.readline() # creator comment
f.readline() # dimensions
data = bytearray(f.read())
return framebuf.FrameBuffer(data, width, height, framebuf.MONO_HLSB)
you now have a sprite you can reuse very efficiently at any time and it is any arbitrary size. the PBM is a tiny single sprite file (the PBM contains a little bit of metadata that you could use as well but I don't bother personally)
display.blit(enabledSprite, x, y, TRANSPARENTCOLOR, COLOR)
the above is the biggest thing that seems impossible with the pimoroni pico display. read through a few long threads of people talking about it but none have conclusions.
with just this and the primitive shapes (line, fill_rect) you can pretty much do everything! and very efficiently

[@typxxilps]

just to let you know : I had purchase last week the pimoronie badger display, the special one
called BADGER 2040W which comes along with the WLAN connection which is most important to me and with the OLED display and a kind of its own application integration which comes along with a weather forecast you can adjust to your coordinates.
Still a lot of work for example as a german you would like to see the german date like 20. April 2023 instead of the british american y-m-d one which needs additional work but the pimoroni badger offers a lot of value and a low entrance to get started for example with internet connected apps, how to connect, how to adjust and what not.
Like it a lot but also complain a lot missing the waveshare world seems to offer but of cause I am unable to judge about the price, I mean the price beyond the price for a 528 x 382 or whatever resolution display , the whole programming nightmare.
but the pimoroni allows a start on the safer side for a quite interestin price point, not cheap at all, but maybe worth the 35€ I had to pay for a badger 2040W shipped to germany incl. 19% VAT.
You get a lot of examples where you can start to tinker and I think it is the right or better way for me and most likely a lot of other followers than to jump into the waveshare adventure with far less documentation and a far longer update time which many people will not really love considerin a lot of long black or coloured pages till you will get your picture. You can not even shut off the display for those 15 seconds it needs to gernerate the picture so you will feel screwed.
totally agree that the pimoroni approach is far more fun to start and play with.

[@juliasommer9767]

I was wondering if it is possible to use the waveshare while using a sensor. I'm new to raspberry pis and I am unsure if its is possible to connect both to the pico since the display uses all the pins. What display should I use that is a little bigger to display simple data measurements (in a very compact manner so no breadboard etc.)? Best regards Julia

[@Sir-Real]

Of course! Most display use either SPI or I2C interface and will only occupy one SPI or I2C port. Plenty of room left for other sensors.
HAT display cover all pins but they don't use all pins. So you can still access/use other pins for your sensor. However, sometimes it might make more sense to use a display which is not HAT mounted but has a dedicated wire connection to one I2C/SPI port.
HAT display sometimes offer some ports on their on PCB. And: There are plugs available which mirror the complete header so that you can mount a HAT PCB and still are able to access all PINs. E.g. : www.berrybase.de/nano-hat-hacker-gpio-verteiler-fuer-raspberry-pi

[@prabhuja7554]

How can I make display now playing on my sandwich pi4b and 3.5 gpio screen?

[@Sir-Real]

This display is made für the Pico! I would chose a different one for the PI4B