Connecting Inkplate 6 with keyboard and battery to microcontroller

TECHNICAL SUPPORT Inkplate
1

Customer:

I have the following components: Inkplate 6, Arduino Uno R3, and 40% keyboard with Pro Micro controller.

  1. How do I wire them together? I’m getting conflicting information from the internet.
  2. If I want portability, how do I incorporate a battery in the wiring? To which component?
  3. What do I need to add or change, if anything?

Originally submitted via email support on 26 February 2026. Migrated to the forum for community visibility.

2

Soldered Support:

Connecting a keyboard to these controllers over USB unfortunately isn’t possible with either the Uno R3 or Inkplate 6, as neither has a USB transceiver.

You would need a microcontroller such as an ESP32S3 which has support for USB HID devices. Then you could parse the USB data and send it to the Inkplate or whichever device you need.

For battery power, the Inkplate 6 already has a JST connector to which you could connect a battery. You could then give power to the other boards via the Inkplate’s 3V3 and GND pins.

You should change the Arduino Uno R3 to a more capable chip such as the ESP32 S3 and write code for parsing the USB data into a more microcontroller friendly protocol such as UART.

3

Customer:

Would a Raspberry Pi be a better choice instead of the Uno R3?

4

Soldered Support:

Yes, Raspberry Pi 4, 5, and the microcontroller Pi Pico all have the USB protocol. Pi 4 and 5 devices will be quite an overkill for your use-case, but if you are interested in using the Pi Pico, here is a video explaining how to use it as a USB host: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIXa-6DRW-Y