Good news for users of the The Arduino GIGA R1 WiFi board: you can now add a nice touch display to your board with minimum effort thanks to the brand-new Arduino GIGA Display Shield. It provides a 3.97” RGB touch screen with 480 × 800 pixels and capable of producing 16.7 million colors. The touch screen is multitouch enabled and supports gestures and up to five simultaneous touchpoints.

Not Just a Display

Besides the display, the shield also has an Arducam 20-pin camera connector, an MP34DT06JTR omnidirectional digital microphone from STMicroelectronics, a Bosch BMI270 6-axis Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) and an RGB LED.

It Connects to the Back

The GIGA Display Shield connects to the two low, black pin sockets of GIGA R1 WiFi, but through the backside. This is possible because these sockets are accessible from both sides of the GIGA R1. This means that the extension connectors of the GIGA R1 on the top side remain accessible. Therefore, the display shield does not conflict with other extension shields.

 
arduino giga display shield
The Arduino GIGA Display Shield connects to the back of the GIGA R1 WiFi board. (Source: Arduino)

Powerful Touch Display Unit

The GIGA Display Shield is larger (11.8 cm × 9 cm × 4 cm) than the GIGA R1 WiFi and completely hides it from view. As it has its own mounting holes, it turns the GIGA R1 into a nice, powerful display module that is easy to embed instead of a clumsy stack of Arduino shields. The GIGA R1 with its ARM Cortex-M7 and Cortex-M4 cores has plenty of processing power for creating high-quality graphics and animations.

The GIGA Display Shield Has a Camera Connector

As mentioned earlier, the shield also has a 20-pin camera connector. It is the same type of two-sided connector as on the GIGA R1 board. The RGB LED can indicate, for instance, if the camera or microphone are on. Building your own Wi-Fi video intercom or cloud dashboard has never been easier.

The IMU is suitable for portable and handheld devices, but can also be used in static applications for vibration or shock detection.

The Arduino GIGA Display Shield is expected to retail for approx. €60.