Customer:
Is the Inkplate 6FLICK suitable for use with Raspberry Pi 4 B? If so, is there a technical guide to make it fully compatible?
Originally submitted via email support on 22 November 2024. Migrated to the forum for community visibility.
Soldered Support:
The Inkplate 6FLICK is an e-paper touchscreen with an onboard ESP32, so it can run its own code and perform many of the Raspberry Pi’s functions. However, there isn’t a complete driver that makes the 6FLICK into a display for the Raspberry Pi in a simple plug-and-play sense.
You can use Inkplate Peripheral Mode: GitHub - SolderedElectronics/Inkplate-Peripheral-Mode-Raspberry-Pi-Example: Some example code for how to drive Inkplate with a Raspberry Pi using peripheral mode · GitHub
This sketch turns any Inkplate into a sort of Raspberry Pi peripheral, allowing you to send data over Serial to drive it. There are limitations, and the peripheral mode is expected to be overhauled and expanded in functionality in the future.
Essentially, the Inkplate won’t act like a plug-and-play monitor, but you can send data via Serial for it to be displayed and drawn. For a project, consider one of two approaches:
- Run all your code directly on the ESP32
- Develop a custom peripheral mode tailored to your application’s specific needs
In the second approach, the Inkplate would handle all the display driving code internally, while the Raspberry Pi would simply send instructions over Serial about what to display. This way, the Inkplate manages the heavy lifting of rendering, and the external device focuses on the logic.