Inky wHAT - Large e-Ink Display

by Pimoroni

Inky wHAT is a 400x300 pixel electronic paper (ePaper / eInk / EPD) display for Raspberry Pi, a larger version of our popular Inky pHAT display, with more than 5x the number of pixels, and available in three colour schemes - red/black/white, yellow/black/white, and black/white.

The larger display opens up many more possibilities, with significantly more space to display information. Like Inky pHAT, the display is crisp and readable in bright sunlight.

Use Inky wHAT as a detailed weather display, as a calendar, for daily news reports, to list household chores, or you could even use it as a tiny DIY e-reader to read your e-books. 

Features

  • 4.2" EPD display (400x300 pixels)
  • 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
  • Inky wHAT pinout
  • Compatible with all 40-pin header Raspberry Pi models
  • Python library
  • Comes fully assembled

Multi-colour EPD displays, like the one on Inky wHAT, use ingenious electrophoresis to pull coloured particles up and down on the display. The coloured particles reflect light, unlike most display types, meaning that they're visible under bright lights. It takes approximately 25 seconds to refresh the display.

Everything comes fully-assembled, and there's no soldering required! The display is securely stuck down to the Inky wHAT PCB and connected via a ribbon cable. Just pop Inky wHAT 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 wHAT, letting you connect additional devices like our breakouts and allowing you to show their data right on the display.

Inky wHAT work with any 40-pin version of the Pi, including Pi Zero and Pi Zero W.

Software

Our Python library takes the stress out of displaying text and images on Inky wHAT, and we've put together a few examples to show off Inky wHAT's capabilities. 

Notes

  • The Inky wHAT 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 the wHAT, grip at the edges of the board rather than pressing on top.
  • Overall dimensions: 91x77x8.5mm (WxHxD, depth includes header and display)
  • Display usable area dimensions: 84.8x63.6mm (WxH), 4.2" diagonal

35 customer reviews

4 months ago
I'm absolutely thrilled with this e-ink display! Despite not being a professional programmer, setting it up was surprisingly straightforward using the libraries provided on GitHub. I'm using it to monitor my VPN/ LAN and AdBlock stats etc.- it's perfect for this kind of monitoring.
by Guido about Inky wHAT - Large e-Ink Display via REVIEWS.io
6 months ago
Very clear epd, fast update of the screen, and if you send data to it as if it's the Black/White/Red version it also has a nice grey (modding the dither python example to include grey instead of red also works!)
by Anonymous about Inky wHAT - Large e-Ink Display via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
Really cool display, but also the software and documentation that exists to support building projects with it makes it much more approachable than you might expect. Also excellent quality and really nice packaging.
by Samuel about Inky wHAT - Large e-Ink Display via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
A really fun piece of tech! Very easy to use. Note that the yellow color is more gold/sand colored in real life (but still pretty!).
by Anonymous about Inky wHAT - Large e-Ink Display via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
Very easy to get up and running - I used it to provide a passive display of server metrics with face inspired by Gerty from the film "Moon"! Pictured is its "mild concern" face. When it frowns, I know action may be required! It's perfect for my use case.
by Paul about Inky wHAT - Large e-Ink Display via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
The product is great but the tutorial is not updated up-to-date. You should follow the instructions in the official github repo, not in the tutorial (it didn't work for me even with a brand new raspberry pi)
by Jeeyoon about Inky wHAT - Large e-Ink Display via REVIEWS.io
4 years ago
Love this display and the font options, brilliant for low refresh data display applications. Currently using with Pi zero as a weather display. :-)
by Alan about Inky wHAT - Large e-Ink Display via REVIEWS.io
4 years ago
Really easy to get up and running with good code examples in their github repo. Only docking one point because with the one I received, the mounting screws don't go in all the way except for one, but it doesn't affect things much.
by Mickey about Inky wHAT - Large e-Ink Display via REVIEWS.io
4 years ago
The Inky wHAT was ridiculously easy to set up, a cinch to program, and looks gorgeous when displaying my solar panel data / weather / tide times. It would be 5/5 from me, but the refresh rate is quite slow for "yellow" mode, taking almost 30 seconds vs about 5 seconds or less for "black" mode.
by Rory about Inky wHAT - Large e-Ink Display via REVIEWS.io
4 years ago
I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THIS! This is the second Inky wHAT that I buy, and they are _amazing_. I used it as a screen for a small controller in my house automation project (as in *my* house's automation project I'm doing), and I just love that it's so low power consuming and really well visible. If you need to increase readability you could add a white led to provide some ambient lighting, or at least that's what I did and it works for me since I'm really into low power consumption.
by Savvas about Inky wHAT - Large e-Ink Display via REVIEWS.io
4 years ago
Great display. As the others in inky range, it would benefit from built-in buttons and mounting holes or at least some kind custom of frame/case.
by guy about Inky wHAT - Large e-Ink Display via REVIEWS.io
4 years ago
This was a great project. A few issues with the install using RP using the pimoroni instructions, ended up using pip and it installed without error.
by Matthew about Inky wHAT - Large e-Ink Display via REVIEWS.io
4 years ago
The sample program was easy to understand and was ready to use. There is no nut to fix it to the RasPi body, so you need to prepare it yourself.
by Ryosuke about Inky wHAT - Large e-Ink Display via REVIEWS.io
5 years ago
This is a very nice display for battery-based projects. All other projects get better displays (more resolution, more colors, touch) for the same price. The connector for the Pi on the back is useful, as are the additional pins available. A perfect fit is the adafruit enable-timer button. This will turn on your Pi every two hours for an update of the display. Connect the done-pin of the button to GPIO4 and add the gpio-poweroff overlay to the /boot/config.txt (using this pin).
by Bernhard about Inky wHAT - Large e-Ink Display via REVIEWS.io
5 years ago
This display is a good size for a small project, and does what it claims to do. I have the 'yellow' variant, which is not as vibrant as I expected — it can be quite muddy at points — but for the price, it is reasonable. The display refresh times are very, very slow. Whilst Pimoroni suggest you could turn this into a mini e-reader in their guides, it's definitely not usable for anything requiring a near-instantaneous refresh. The resolution is also pretty low, so it won't render huge amounts of content. For a low-density, low-frequency project, it's perfect: but don't expect miracles. Getting the display itself to reliably interpret the code I am producing has sometimes been a challenge; sometimes telling it to render in one colour results in it rendering one of the other colours (black turns up white, etc). Whilst it's plausible my coding isn't up to snuff, I suspect the firmware/software for the screen itself is also a little buggy.
by John about Inky wHAT - Large e-Ink Display via REVIEWS.io
5 years ago
Great display, very readable and super easy to install since it comes all assembled. The python library provides great resources to get you started, one thing to point out though is the long refresh time - a couple of seconds for black/white and even more if you use yellow. That is what the type of display allows, so it is to be expected.
by Jan about Inky wHAT - Large e-Ink Display via REVIEWS.io
5 years ago
Nice little screen , easy to fit on Pi3 with included screws and separator. Gathering the proper libraries for its use requires a bit of effort but it is worth it. Carefully packaged and swiftly delivered (Germany) as usual with Pimoroni.
by Anonymous about Inky wHAT - Large e-Ink Display via REVIEWS.io
5 years ago
Bought to experiment with, The hat comes well packed and with all that you need. including a 40 pin socket that has no apparent purpose. However when you go to connect it to a 'full size' pi you realise that they wont mate without the extra 40 pin socket as an electrical standoff. And while we are talking about standoffs be careful assembling the standoffs, the display panel itself it quite fragile. Mine is working away, and I'm a happy pirate!
by Chic about Inky wHAT - Large e-Ink Display via REVIEWS.io
5 years ago
Super easy to install and really nice fittings to attach what to a Pi B, however these standoffs won’t fit a Pi Zero in a Pibow case. Found the examples didn’t work at first but after checking the Pimoroni forum found I had to enable I2C and as if like magic all worked as intended. Also the getting started guide is really helpful for beginners like myself to get started with an e-paper screen like this; had started with a WaveShare screen and found this very tricky to get installed and examples to run.
by Dan about Inky wHAT - Large e-Ink Display via REVIEWS.io
6 years ago
Great display. Easy to install just connect to the gpio pins of the raspberry pi and install the libraries using the script on the pimoroni web page. I’m using mine for my Amateur Radio pi setup and it works great!
by Mark about Inky wHAT - Large e-Ink Display via REVIEWS.io
6 years ago
This is such a fun product, and comes with useful example code, but needs a little update: on the Pi4, it was erroring until I discovered I had to enable 'I2C' (in Preferences-> Rasberry Pi Configuration). Hardware wise, it is a super crisp display. Everything arrived really quickly and was perfect!
by Sean about Inky wHAT - Large e-Ink Display via REVIEWS.io
6 years ago
Gorgeous display. I made a BTC ticker with the red version (now I'm thinking the yellow would have been more appropriate...). You can see result in this video: https://youtu.be/51UYrKa5JwU Also the 3D model for the case: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3694748
by gilemon about Inky wHAT - Large e-Ink Display via REVIEWS.io
6 years ago
Very easy to build (it's just plug and play). The downfall is that the screen takes quite some time to change, like 10seconds, which will make you think about what kind of information (and refresh rate) you want to use it for.
by Anonymous about Inky wHAT - Large e-Ink Display via REVIEWS.io
6 years ago
Beautiful bit of kit! I knew it'd be larger than inky pHAT, but didn't expect it to be quite so big and beautiful! Really lovely and I think it refreshes faster than the pHAT too. The included library examples look really good and I've got a few ideas for how to combine the wHAT with a Button SHIM or Touch pHAT for some fun experiments. I do wish it was possible to get the original image back on the screen though - unless I'm running the logo script wrong, it comes out as a larger version of the pHAT? Nonetheless - really great!
by Arianne about Inky wHAT - Large e-Ink Display via REVIEWS.io
6 years ago
A really great eInk display, It updates relatively fast and the API is nicely written and easy to get to grips with. I really like the addition of the risers and anchor points on the back of the display as it is a really nice way to affix a raspberry pi. The extra ports on the bottom are quite handy too fi you're thinking about adding a few extra sensors to your build once the display is on.
by James about Inky wHAT - Large e-Ink Display via REVIEWS.io
6 years ago
In general, it is an excellent display. Much bigger than pHAT. The only drawback is slow refresh (about 40 sec. on Pi zero W) so wHAT is not a perfect solution to every project. But for projects like calendar, weather forecast, info/alert panel, etc it is great.
by tib about Inky wHAT - Large e-Ink Display via REVIEWS.io
6 years ago
I wanted something bigger than Inky pHAT, so when I saw new Inky I bought it immediately. The display is great, so is the visibility of the screen. Demo code shows how to draw dithered photos, which is great. I used it my weather forecast script. Results are excellent. However, the refresh rate is slow. The whole process of drawing new screen lasts about 40 seconds (demo script + 400x300 png, pi zero w), but the flickering part is just 10 seconds. So for the projects with a few redraws per hour/day, it is perfect. Otherwise, it is way too slow. Anyway, I'm really happy that I have it.
by tib about Inky wHAT - Large e-Ink Display via REVIEWS.io

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