Ident drives two quite different kinds of panel. Neither is better — they suit different rooms. Here's how to choose, and what we'd buy.
Statement piece — or understated
Blend in or stand out.
Put the display behind a mount in a picture frame and it reads as a print on the wall. Or leave the Raspberry Pi on show behind the glass, wires and all, for something that looks like it came off the flight deck. The software is the same either way; the frame setting draws the board inside whatever window your mount leaves.
| Colour e-paper | LED matrix | |
|---|---|---|
| Looks like | Printed paper in a frame | An airport departure board |
| In a dark room | Invisible — no light at all | Glows; dimmable, but still a light source |
| Updates | ~30 seconds, on change | Instantly, continuously |
| Power | Under a watt; holds image unplugged | Several watts, more at full brightness |
| Assembly | Push onto the header, no soldering | Ribbon cable, power injection, a bonnet |
| Best in | Hall, kitchen, bedroom, lounge | Study, office, workshop, bar |
| Cost | £50–£230 depending on size | £25–£70 plus a bonnet and supply |
Option one
Pimoroni Inky Impression panels. They sit straight on the Raspberry Pi's 40-pin header — no soldering, no wiring — and have four buttons on the side.
| Panel | Resolution | Colours | Indicative | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Inky Impression 7.3″ · Pimoroni | 800×480 | 6 | £79.50 | The one to buy. Readable across a kitchen, wide enough for the route maps and the full duty timeline. |
| Inky Impression 4.0″ · Pimoroni | 600×400 | 6 | £49.50 | Cheapest way in and genuinely good on a desk or by the front door. Small for a wall. |
| Inky Impression 13.3″ · Pimoroni | 1600×1200 | 6 | £229.50 | A proper wall piece, and the maps look superb. Slowest to redraw, and by far the most expensive part of the build. |
| Inky Impression 5.7″ | 600×448 | 7 | — | Discontinued. The panel Ident was originally built on and still fully supported — but don't go hunting for one. |
Option two
Standard HUB75 panels, driven through hzeller's rpi-rgb-led-matrix library. Cheap, bright, and the closest thing to a real departure board.
| Configuration | Pixels | Indicative | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 × 64×32 panels chained | 128×32 | ~£50 + bonnet | Recommended. The default Ident is tuned for. Wide enough for a full-width route map with a moving marker. |
| Single 64×32 panel | 64×32 | ~£25 + bonnet | Works, on the compact layout. Long routes truncate and scroll. |
| Single 64×64 panel | 64×64 | ~£35 + bonnet | Not yet. One panel to mount and a lovely shape, but the LED layouts are currently drawn for a 32-pixel-high panel — on a 64-high one the text sits in the top half. Support is being added; ask before buying for Ident. |
| 4 × 64×32 chained | 256×32 | ~£95 + bonnet | Dramatic on a long wall, but needs a proper 5V supply and careful power injection. |
Unlike e-paper, the LED route means ribbon cables, a separate power supply, and building the driver library on the Pi — it isn't installable with pip. It's well-documented and thousands of people have done it, but set aside an afternoon rather than an hour, and be comfortable following a wiring guide.
Small two-colour e-paper modules with no buttons and a ribbon you must solder. They work in principle but the display area is tiny and the experience is poor.
Ident will happily drive one via the simulator, but a backlit screen glowing all night in a hallway is exactly what e-paper exists to avoid.
SPI displays without a maintained Python driver mean writing one. If it isn't an Inky or a HUB75 panel, ask first.
The commonest LED-matrix failure. Flicker, colour shifts and random reboots are nearly always the supply, not the code.
The software is identical. Every style adapts to the panel you own, and you can switch panels later without buying anything else.
Nothing about the configuration changes between panel types.
Ident works out which display is fitted at boot.
Including the combinations that don't work — see parts.