FrameOSPimoroni Inky wHAT 4.2" black/white/red (high-temp)
400×300 black/white/red e-ink HAT for FrameOS - specs, setup and driver details.
Official Pimoroni store
Official store page for this device.
- Vendor
- Pimoroni
- Model
- Inky wHAT 4.2" black/white/red (high-temp)
- Technology
- E-ink
- Colors
- Black / White / Red
- Resolution
- 400×300 px
- Size
- 4.2″ diagonal
- Interface
- SPI HAT
- Platforms
- Raspberry Pi
- Status
- 🟡 Should work
- FrameOS driver
pimoroni.inky_what_red_ht
Part of the FrameOS device database. Spotted an error, or tested this panel? Edit this page on GitHub - it's a markdown file.
The Pimoroni Inky wHAT 4.2" black/white/red (high-temp) is a 4.2″ e-ink panel with a resolution of 400×300 pixels showing black, white and red. Panels with an accent ink run a multi-pass refresh that takes roughly 15-30 seconds, so they suit art, calendars and dashboards that update every few minutes rather than every second. Pimoroni's boards are the easiest e-ink hardware to start with: panel and driver electronics come as one unit that plugs straight onto the Pi's GPIO header - no soldering, no separate driver board.
How it works
FrameOS ships a native Nim driver
(pimoroni.inky_what_red_ht) compiled straight into the binary that runs on your Raspberry Pi - no Python, no
vendor libraries. Each render pass draws your scene into a full-color image,
dithers it to the panel's palette, and pushes the result to the display over SPI.
Setup
- Plug the board onto the Pi's GPIO header.
- Add a frame in the FrameOS backend and select the Pimoroni Inky wHAT - 4.2" black/white/red high-temp driver.
- Save & deploy. The panel blinks through a refresh cycle and shows your scene.
Status
🟡 Should work, not yet confirmed on real hardware. The driver shares its controller logic with panels that are confirmed working. If you have this display, report your results with a photo and we'll mark it confirmed.