Keyboard FeatherWing - QWERTY Keyboard + 2.6" LCD

by Solder Party

An easy way to add a handheld Qwerty keyboard and a 2.6” color display (+ more) to your project!

It fits well in your hands and is great for typing with your thumbs, early 2000s-style.

Note: This is a Revision 2 of the Keyboard FeatherWing, it changes the touch driver to the TSC2004 and adds an Ambient Light Sensor. Otherwise, the dimensions and GPIO assignments are the same as in Revision 1.

Note: The FeatherWing itself does not contain an MCU/CPU/SoC that you can program; you will need a board compatible with the Adafruit Feather System.

Depending on your Feather choice, this FeatherWing can become a Linux terminal, a CircuitPython REPL, a WiFi client or server, a BLE peripheral, a LoRa communicator, and so much more!

Features and Technical details

  • 2.6" 320x240 16-bit color LCD with resistive touch screen - The LCD driver (ILI9341) is interfaced over SPI, the touch driver (TSC2004) is interfaced over I2C.
  • QWERTY keyboard - A BB Q10 keyboard connected to a SAMD20, the key FIFO can be easily accessed over I2C.
  • 5-way button - Great for navigating menus, also connected to the SAMD.
  • 4 soft tactile buttons - Feel very nice to press, use them for whatever function you want; also connected to the SAMD.
  • Neopixel - Allows you to show the status of your board.
  • Ambient Light Sensor - Connected to Analog pin 5, can be used to dim the backlight based on the ambient light levels.
  • microSD connector - Gotta keep those photos and other files somewhere, am I right?
  • Stemma QT/Qwiic connector - Opens the door to an ecosystem of dozens, if not hundreds, of Stemma QT/Qwiic boards.
  • On/Off switch - Connected to the Feather Enable pin, turns off the Feather at LDO level (varies between Feathers), as well as 5V.
  • GPIO expander - The SAMD20 also doubles as a I2C GPIO expander, you can access the Touch INT, and Card Detect over the expander, also there are a few test points for extra GPIOs.
  • Dual row sockets - Thanks to these, you can still access the Feather pins even when the Feather is plugged in!
  • Four mounting holes - Use these for enclosures or to attach a lanyard.
  • GPIO solder jumpers - Almost all GPIOs can be disconnected from the FeatherWing, just in case you have something else in mind for them.

This FeatherWing makes it simple to use your Feather on-the-go with the LCD serving as output and the Keyboard acting as input. Thanks to the Stemma QT/Qwiic connector, you can attach various sensors to the Wing and process and display the incoming data.

The possibilities are limitless!

What you get

An assembled Keyboard FeatherWing PCB with the Qwerty keyboard and 2.6” color display installed. Just add the Feather of your choice, and you're ready to go!

Documentation

Optional Buy

If you would like to use the Keyboard FeatherWing with a Raspberry Pi Pico, you can optionally add the RPi Pico Adapter board. The Pico itself is not included!