Unicorn HAT Mini

by Pimoroni

Over one hundred RGB LEDs, all individually-controllable, and four tactile buttons. It's the ultimate pocket-sized rainbow generator for Raspberry Pi!

Unicorn HAT Mini is a 17x7 matrix of RGB LEDs that can be controlled, both in terms of colour and brightness, to display animations, text, simple images, and more. The four tactile buttons add tonnes of utility to control the colour or brightness of the LEDs, or as controls for simple games, or whatever else you like.

There's no fiddly soldering, as the header is pre-attached. Just pop it onto your Raspberry Pi and start pooping out rainbows faster than you can say "Richard of York gave battle in vain".

Features

  • 17x7 matrix of RGB LEDs (119 total)
  • Individual colour/brightness control of each LED
  • Holtek HT16D35A LED matrix driver chip (x2)
  • Four tactile buttons
  • Mini HAT-format board
  • Fully-assembled (no soldering required)
  • Compatible with all 40-pin header Raspberry Pi models
  • Python library
  • Dimensions: 65x30x10mm
  • Pinout

Software

We've put together a Python library for Unicorn HAT Mini that makes it simple to control individual LED's colour and brightness, display images or test, make games, and more. There's some really fun examples of how to use the buttons for games, with Simon Says and a fun little Columns-type game with coloured, falling blocks.

Check out our beginner friendly getting started tutorial here!

Notes

Unicorn HAT Mini uses non-smart RGB LEDs, the same as our Unicorn HAT HD, rather than NeoPixel or DotStar-type addressable LEDs, driven by two LED matrix driver chips (the Holtek HT16D35A).

Because the pixels and the driver chip are different to all of our other Unicorn boards (Unicorn HAT, Unicorn pHAT, Unicorn HAT HD, Ubercorn), examples and code written for those other boards won't run directly without a few tweaks to the code first.

22 customer reviews

2 years ago
This is a great little device, super easy to get up and running on a pi zero w (1.1) I created a demo project you can see here to show your github contribution graph. https://github.com/markmcgookin/unicorn-hat-mini-github-contributions
by Mark about Unicorn HAT Mini via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
Love it... 4 stars though as it seems I have quite a few LED's that won't go full when displaying red, and I feel that there's a lack of documentation for a newb to get their hands on... scrollphathd examples do help fill in some gaps but would love more demo's when it comes to gpio button usage. Also where can we share things we have done? I've made various assets including 3x7 fonts and a few other things that I think people would like to get their hands on.. clock and cpu monitor with temperature gage in pics below.
by Mike about Unicorn HAT Mini via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
Beautiful, bright lights with an excellent software library to go along with them. Quick and easy to use and so versatile.
by DAVID about Unicorn HAT Mini via REVIEWS.io
3 years ago
This thing is a treat. Same dimensions as a Pi Zero, it really is a neat little HAT. Also tested with a pi2 and A+. Will struggle with coupé cases.
by Anonymous about Unicorn HAT Mini via REVIEWS.io
4 years ago
Love it! Colors are extremely bright and saturated. Buttons are tiny, but have a very solid tactile push.
by Andrew about Unicorn HAT Mini via REVIEWS.io