SB Components' Duo Display Sandwiches Two Roundy or Squary Smart Displays Into One Clever Bundle
Building on the earlier Roundy and Squary, the Duo Displays sandwich together to create a two-sided embedded display with microSD storage.
SB Components is crowdfunding for a new pair of smart embedded display boards, available in round or square formats and boasting, unusually, a display on both sides: the Duo Display Dual Squary or Dual Roundy.
The Duo Display models build, as their names imply, on SB Components' existing Squary and Roundy smart displays — the former available as the SquaryPi and SquaryFi and using a hard-edged display, while the earlier RoundyPi and RoundyFi used circular displays. In both cases, the "Pi" and "Fi" suffix indicates the microcontroller type on board: either a Raspberry Pi RP2040 or an Espressif ESP-12E with Wi-Fi connectivity, a split choices which follow through to the new models too.
"DuoPi features the RP2040, while DuoFi boasts the ESP32-S3-WROOM-1 microcontroller," SB Components Kamaluddin Khan explains of the new embedded display family, "providing users the flexibility to effortlessly switch between them, all wrapped in sleek interchangeable displays. [The displays are] a groundbreaking tech companion that offers a unique blend of versatility and creativity."
This time around, though, there's more than a couple of choices in the mix. The Dual Roundy and Dual Squary devices are built from two distinct PCBs, one of which hosts the microcontroller and one display with the other holding a second display and a microSD slot for local storage. If you only need one display, the two split in half — and you can take the second display from an RP2040-based board and use it with the ESP32 version, and vice-versa.
The round-display models use a 1.28" color panel with a 240×240 resolution while the square versions opt for a 1.53" display with the same resolution — with neither supporting touch inputs. Regardless of display shape or microcontroller, all models include a six-degrees-of-freedom (6DoF) inertial measurement unit (IMU), user-programmable RGB LEDs, microSD storage, a USB Type-C port for power and data, and a battery connector. All models also include at least two user-definable push-button switches, with the square models having three.
The boards are now funding on Kickstarter at £40 (around $51) for one controller board and one add-on display and microSD board, regardless of shape or microcontroller; a £45 (around $57) "super early bird" bundle offers both the ESP32 and RP2040 controller boards with one interchangeable add-on display and microSD board. All hardware is expected to ship in May this year, SB Components has confirmed.