“I love this display. It is well built and nicely integrated with the Pico W. The software libraries are good though need better documentation. If the board broke out SWD and UART I would give it 5*s.
I show some example code using the board in this video on YouTube: https://studio.youtube.com/video/F9HNypiFc8w/edit”
“This display is so incredibly gorgeous in person, and having the pico w built in and loaded with examples makes it really easy to get going. It’s a really well done and unique product!”
“The LEDs look great, very bright and vibrant colours. The photos don't really do it justice. With the included code samples, and a bit of messing around I was able to get the weather/clock programme running. I had ambitions of doing something else, but the clock was exactly what I needed anyway. Once combined with a 3D printed case (which was easy to find the plans for), i was able to assemble it and put it on a sheft as a great background during video calls, and a nice conversation starter.
My only sightly negative is that the world has moved to USB C, but this still has micro USB.”
“Used this to make a clock for our classroom. The clock updates its time connecting to an NTP server. It will periodically (every week) update its time so it is never far off from the actual time.”
“The Galactic Unicorn is a nice display. It seems to have better diffusion and control over low brightnesses than typical RGB pixels. It doesn't have the super higher brightness of other RGB pixels but arguably that's a positive as it keeps the current capped at 1A (Pimoroni's documented value). The small speaker on the back is surprisingly loud for such a small device.
It's easy to connect to i2c peripherals but not so easy to connect to analogue devices or i2s ones. I would have liked for at least one of the ADC-capable GPIO to be made available on a connector. Or use the existing connectors and have some PCB tracks to cut to get rid of the pullup resistors for anyone who wants to use i2s or analogue peripherals.
It comes with two metal pins for a stand. These work well for the Inky Frame (with a heavy battery pack changing the centre of gravity) but not so well on the Galactic Unicorn from a brief experiment. I don't think they are high enough on the board so it stands near vertical and is prone to being knocked over. I'd imagine the weight of a battery pack would help.
There's a lot you can do with the board and its Pi Pico W in MicroPython. I've switched to C++ as I need to squeeze a bit more performance from it. I've added an external microphone module and enhanced the Pimoroni Blunicorn software to use that. I've also added a guitar/instrument tuner feature to it. All of that can be found on Instructables, links below.
https://www.instructables.com/Making-a-Guitar-Tuner-and-Audio-Spectrum-Analyser-/
https://www.instructables.com/Adding-a-Microphone-to-Pi-Pico-W-on-Pimoroni-Galac/”
“This is a gorgeous display and thanks to the use of a standardised controller can be used for just about anything, from even timing displays to clocks or tickers.
Wifi adds a lot of flexibility: You can remotely upload code using WebREPL, you can use it to synchronise time via NTP, pull in weather data from a web API or even connect it to an MQTT broker and display some live data. The addition of buttons along both edges makes for a nice self-contained unit.
I like that the .dxf files are available so that you can easily make an enclosure and it comes from a company with a proven track record for customer support.”
