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0.96" SPI Colour LCD (160x80) Breakout

by Pimoroni

A handy lil' LCD to add readouts to your projects. This 0.96" SPI LCD has a 2:1 widescreen aspect ratio, has great viewing angles (IPS), and works with Raspberry Pi or Arduino.

The display is great for displaying tidbits of information like timers, clocks, sensor readings, and more. Why not use it to display the IP address of a headless Raspberry Pi, so that you don't have to connect a full display or fiddle around with nmap?

Despite being so diminutive, this LCD is a gorgeous little display. It's bright, has great resolution and, because it's an IPS panel, it has wide viewing angles and looks great whichever way you look at it. It's driven by SPI and you should be able to run it at up to ~50FPS, although we've found that anywhere from 10FPS looks good for most uses.

You can use this breakout completely solder-free with Breakout Garden HAT with SPI!

Features

  • 0.96" colour LCD (160x80 pixels)
  • SPI interface
  • 3.3V or 5V compatible
  • Reverse polarity protection
  • Compatible with Arduino
  • Compatible with Raspberry Pi (Python library)
  • Compatible with Raspberry Pi Pico (C++/MicroPython libraries)

Display specifications

  • 160x80 pixels (~190 PPI)
  • 10.8x21.7mm active area
  • 400cd/m2 luminance
  • 800:1 contrast ratio
  • 160° viewing angle (horizontal and vertical)
  • ST7735S driver chip

    Software

    We've adapted an existing Python library to drive this display. The library makes it straightforward to display images, text or graphics, and even display animated GIFs! 

    You can also use this breakout with Raspberry Pi Pico and other RP2040 boards, using C++ or Pirate brand MicroPython.

    Connecting to a Raspberry Pi

    If you're not using our Breakout Garden HAT with SPI, then this is how to connect your LCD Breakout up to your Raspberry Pi.

    Our Python library is set up to use SPI 0 by default on the Pi (BCM 7 for CS, BCM 11 for SCK, and BCM 10 for MOSI), BCM 9 for DC, and BCM 19 for the backlight.

    Here's which pins to connect between your 0.96" LCD Breakout and your Pi's GPIO (note that it's BCM pin numbering):

    • 3-5V to any 5V or 3V pin
    • CS to BCM 7
    • SCK to BCM 11
    • MOSI to BCM 10
    • DC to BCM 9
    • BL to BCM 19
    • GND to any ground pin

    You can of course use other pins with your LCD Breakout, but you'll have to change them accordingly when you instantiate the display in your code.

    Connecting to a Raspberry Pi Pico

    The easiest way to use our SPI breakouts with a Raspberry Pi Pico is by plugging them into a Pico Breakout Garden Base or a Pico Breakout Garden Pack.

    If you'd rather wire them up to a Pico directly, here's how it goes!

    • 3-5V to any 5V or 3V pin
    • CS to GP17
    • SCK to GP18
    • MOSI to GP19
    • DC to GP16
    • BL to GP20
    • GND to any ground pin

    Notes

    Dimensions: 29.1x25.9x5.4mm

    19 customer reviews

    2 years ago
    A very good screen. I did have to make some tweaks to the Arduino library to make the graphics line up properly, and the colours also require adjustment. However, it was a quick job so I can't complain too much.
    by Ben about 0.96" SPI Colour LCD (160x80) Breakout via REVIEWS.io
    4 years ago
    Great little device - bright display with wide viewing angle. Software setup is reasonably straightforward. I have had a few issues with colours randomly not being the colour specified - there doesn't seem to be any way of fixing this other than turning it off and on a few times until it starts working again......
    by Richard about 0.96" SPI Colour LCD (160x80) Breakout via REVIEWS.io
    4 years ago
    Works nicely, decent viewing angle. Backlight is bright enough for day; a bit too bright for dark viewing but that’s a niche case anyway. With it sat in the mini Breakout Garden on top of the Pi Zero it feels like everything needed to drive it it much bigger than the Pi or screen itself; proportionally the overhead of the breakout connectors and the garden etc are quite big. Once you incorporate it into an actual permanent build that’s much slicker. Too wide to fit the width of a Pi Zero unless you’ve got it raised high enough up that it clears all the GPIO pins, but on something more custom you could fit it quite neatly on there if you weren’t needing standard headers.
    by Anonymous about 0.96" SPI Colour LCD (160x80) Breakout via REVIEWS.io
    4 years ago
    Works nicely, decent viewing angle. Backlight is bright enough for day; a bit too bright for dark viewing but that’s a niche case anyway. With it sat in the mini Breakout Garden on top of the Pi Zero it feels like everything needed to drive it it much bigger than the Pi or screen itself; proportionally the overhead of the breakout connectors and the garden etc are quite big. Once you incorporate it into an actual permanent build that’s much slicker. Too wide to fit the width of a Pi Zero unless you’ve got it raised high enough up that it clears all the GPIO pins, but on something more custom you could fit it quite neatly on there if you weren’t needing standard headers.
    by Anonymous about 0.96" SPI Colour LCD (160x80) Breakout via REVIEWS.io
    5 years ago
    Be aware, this has a very fine ribbon cable on the back that stands proud of the PCB and so care is needed when plugging in or removing from the garden. Driver on the Pi is a long install - support is simpler on the Arduino boards! Quality is good (esp given the size) and it is nice and bright.
    by Andrew about 0.96" SPI Colour LCD (160x80) Breakout via REVIEWS.io
    6 years ago
    Have a stack of headless pi-zero W's that I was planning to mount to the backside of my main monitor, and now I can have status displays for them all that sit on the monitor edge. Soldered this up in about two minutes and was off on a mission to deploy rainbows. Install script does not enable SPI in config.txt, needed to do that on my own, no big deal. 5V pin for me caused distorted colors (no colors matched). It also seemed to cause a problem with the BL pin. Connected to 3.3V pin and all my troubles with the colors went away. Install script did not download the latest from github, and as such deployrainbows.gif was missing. I had to download that manually, again, not a problem. gif.py did not display the gif for me with rotation=90, which is default for the library. I had to adjust the code to swap width/height to get it to display correctly when rotated to 90/270. The overall initial experience was a little lacking, but I feel awesome since I got everything working. Pros: Wiring Directions are compete. Looks amazing - Colors are bright. Viewing angle is insane (in the membrane). Smooth animation on deployrainbows.gif and other samples. Definitely worth the money. Cons: None that I can see.
    by David about 0.96" SPI Colour LCD (160x80) Breakout via REVIEWS.io