FrameOSPimoroni Inky wHAT 4.2" black/white/red (SSD1683)
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 (SSD1683)
- 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_ssd1683_red
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 (SSD1683) 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_ssd1683_red) 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 (SSD1683) 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, tell us on GitHub or Discord and we'll mark it confirmed.