Customer:
Does the 10 inch version have physical buttons for going forward and back? I thought I saw those on the device and I’m just double checking.
Originally submitted via email support on 7 October 2023. Migrated to the forum for community visibility.
Soldered Support:
Older versions of Inkplate 10 have physical buttons. The versions currently in stock are newer versions of Inkplate 10 and they come with no buttons but plenty of GPIO which you can use however you’d like, including buttons, switches, etc.
If you want, an inquiry can be made to check if CrowdSupply has a version with buttons still available, but we can’t guarantee it. Supported code and features between those two versions are the same so you can do all the same things with it, and library updates and improvements still apply even if it’s the older version.
Customer:
Does this mean the new version has no built navigation? Would this mean a user would have to come up with their own way to navigate menus? Also does this mean a version with a 3D printed body has no way to navigate anything? And does this mean someone who buys one is better off attaching their own buttons?
Soldered Support:
Yes, the new version has no built in touch-buttons which are sometimes used for navigation. This design choice was made because many people requested a more compact design which still allows for potential expansion using the GPIO expanders - to which you can connect anything. Inkplate is a development-board and tool to use ePaper in your project, and was not intended as a dedicated eReader, even though it can do that.
The version with the 3D printed case has no access to buttons by default except the WAKE button, which is on GPIO_36 of the ESP32. There is also technically the power button, but that’s probably not useful in this case. However, you can map the WAKE button to whatever you want in code. There are many ways to use one button (short press, long press, double tap) so if you only need some basic control, this could suffice.
A good approach would be to get the newest Inkplate 10 and modify the 3D file for the case (as the files are open-source) to make room for buttons. You could at the very least make some sort of hole on the side where you would run wires for a couple buttons and attach them to the side of Inkplate.