Pimoroni HyperPixel 2.1" round LCD

• Manufacturer: Pimoroni
• Device: HyperPixel 2.1" Round 480×480 LCD with touch
• Extra: touch input

What to buy

• The HyperPixel 2.1" Round display from Pimoroni.
• A Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W (preferred) or Zero W.
• A 40-pin GPIO header to solder onto the Pi - or buy the pre-pinned Zero WH/W2H and skip the soldering.

How it works

One native driver runs the panel - no Pimoroni installer, no Python, no Bullseye. On the first deploy its setup writes what the panel needs into config.txt and the frame reboots once. How the pixels get to the glass depends on the Pi, which the frame detects by itself:

• Pi Zero to Pi 4 - the Pi's firmware drives DPI into /dev/fb0, and FrameOS sends the panel its init sequence and switches the backlight over GPIO.
• Pi 5 (FrameOS 2026.9.20+) - a Pi 5 has no firmware DPI, so setup enables the kernel's vc4-kms-dpi-hyperpixel2r overlay instead and FrameOS only writes the framebuffer. No touch on this path, and it hasn't been tried on real hardware yet.

From FrameOS 2026.9.20 touch works on a Pi Zero to Pi 4: the kernel's own FT5x06 driver reads it, and it arrives in your scenes as the pointer events mouseMove, mouseDown and mouseUp. Coordinates follow the frame's rotate and flip settings.

Setup

1. Solder the header if your Pi needs one, and plug the display on.
2. Add a frame and select the Pimoroni HyperPixel 2.1" Round device.
3. Save & deploy. The first deploy reboots the Pi once, then the scene appears.

The HyperPixel takes every GPIO pin, so the Pi's I2C and SPI buses are switched off while it is the frame's display - no other HATs or GPIO buttons alongside it.

Coming from an older setup

Until FrameOS 2026.9.14 there were two devices for this panel: a legacy one on top of Pimoroni's hyperpixel2r installer and Raspberry Pi OS Bullseye, and a "(native)" one. They are now the one native driver behind the one device, and existing frames are moved over for you. The next full deploy (or Buildroot update) comments out Pimoroni's overlay in config.txt, writes the DPI block and reboots once. A frame from before touch gains two more config.txt lines and one reboot the same way.

Display power

Turn display off / on - in the frame's … menu, or as turnOff / turnOn events from a scene or a schedule - switches the backlight. The frame keeps rendering while the panel is off, so it comes back on with the current image. The driver owns the backlight pin (GPIO 19) and only switches it on and off; there is no dimming.

3D models

A community case design is available on Cults3D.