Bobricius' PicoTouch HMI Is a Raspberry Pi Pico Carrier for Your Human-Machine Interface Projects
A single-board design hosting the Raspberry Pi Pico as a surface-mount module, the PicoTouch HMI packs a keypad, screen, speaker, and more.
Peter "Bobricius" Misenko has unveiled another gadget powered by the low-cost Raspberry Pi Pico microcontroller board family, this time taking aim at human-machine interface (HMI) projects with the PicoTouch HMI.
"[The Pico Touch HMI is a Raspberry Pi Pico] based single board panel," Misenko writes of the project. "Amazing CircuitPython libraries with MP3, touch and IPS display support. Minimum components. SD Card, RTC [Real-Time Clock] and some free GPIO [General-Purpose Input/Output pins] are ready to use in my next projects."
As is common with Misenko's designs, the PicoTouch HMI uses its circuit board both electrically and as a user-facing surface. To the rear of the board are pads to mount a Raspberry Pi Pico or recently-launched radio-equipped Raspberry Pi Pico W as a surface-mount module along with the speaker, SD Card slot, battery connector, and RTC module.
On the front, meanwhile, a cap in the PCB provides a viewing point for a compact 0.96" color IPS display and a 12-key capacitive touch pad comprised of the numbers 0-9 and the # and * symbols. Next to this is a small grille for the speaker while a reset button and available GPIO ports are found to the top.
The PicoTouch HMI isn't Misenko's first shot at a Raspberry Pi Pico-powered gadget: A year ago he launched the PICOmputer, a pocket-friendly PCB-sandwich designed to turn the RP2040 microcontroller board into a functional personal computer.
At the time of writing, Misenko had yet to release design files for the board — which is described as an "ongoing project" — but has opened a project page on Hackaday.io for those looking to keep an eye on developments.
UPDATE: The display was incorrectly identified as an OLED panel in a previous version of this article.