Internet of Things (IoT) manufacturer Ciseco has released the Pi-Lite LED display for the Raspberry Pi. The bright LED matrix boasts an on-board processor, allowing Raspberry Pi users to display messages and graphics by sending simple commands and text strings to the serial port. The Pi-Lite display unit is a pre-built plug & play module. It can also operate in stand-alone mode, and when combined with one of Ciseco’s radio modules it can be used as a wireless display unit.

 

The Pi-Lite is actually an Arduino Uno board plus a Lots of LEDs shield adapted to fit on the Raspberry Pi. The board is populated with 196 red LEDs arranged in a 9 x 14 matrix (a white version will be available soon) and each pixel can be individually addressed. Thanks to the Optiboot boot loader programmed in the on-board ATmega328 controller the board can be upgraded or reprogrammed using the standard Arduino environment.

 

The kit comes with functions for text scrolling, bar graph displays, a VU meter, and addressing individual pixels.