Ever wanted a pocket computer with a Full HD screen (1080x1920)? Love tiny GPIO screens like this 3.5 Inch from Waveshare but want one that is a little bigger and higher resolution so that it is easier to read? Or want a really premium touch interface UI for your next groundbreaking project? Then the Waveshare 5.5 Inch AMOLED Screen running at 1080x1920 is exactly what you need!
Sporting a toughened glass capacitive touch panel (boasting a 6H hardness) with Tempered Glass Support for even more rugged situations, a 3.5mm audio jack supporting HDMI audio output, and a micro-USB connection to power the screen and Raspberry Pi simultaneously (you can also use the USB-C port of the Raspberry Pi) it makes this screen quite formidable. All whilst providing mounting points on the back for any generation of Raspberry Pi. Each Raspberry Pi will go through a very similar process to set up and have running effectively with this screen. I will demonstrate setting it up directly (and avoid any headlessness installation for simplicity).
This guide is the specific process to set up the Waveshare 5.5 Inch AMOLED Screen for the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B. The set-up process gone through here is readily transferable for whatever small-sized Raspberry Pi Display that runs through HDMI ports that you have. See contents below.
- What You Need
- Initial Hardware Set-Up
- Configuring Screen and Touch
- Set up Screen Savers to Prevent Burn-In
- Great Use Cases for this AMOLED Screen
- 3D Printed Case
AMOLED display when compared with LCD has advantages of high contrast, wide color gamut, and wide viewing angle. All this means this screen is able to bring a vivid, delicious and deep visual experience. Supporting Raspberry Pi, Jetson Nano, and Windows-based computers driver free with 5 points touch when running windows. Touch on this board is Capacitive. Capacitive screens are the method most modern smartphones utilise and their operation relies on the electrical properties of the human body as the input. These screens are more enjoyable to interact with than resistive touch and can work with multi-points of simultaneous input.
Note - Screen tearing occurs on this device during video playback whilst in horizontal display mode when connected to a Raspberry Pi Single Board Computer. This does not occur with the other compatible high-powered devices. It definitely does this but for everyday use (which doesn't include hardcore retro gaming or HD video playback) this screen is a joy both to look at and use. Thus for situations where you only desire a simple UI with touch (say controlling lights inside your house via a wall-mounted panel) or an elegant display of information (like the local weather) then these small displays are perfect.
UPDATE - I can confirm No Screen Tearing in any orientation when using Ubuntu Desktop 21.10 with a Raspberry Pi Single Board Computer (Check the bottom of the article for proof).
As always if you have any questions, queries, or things to add please let us know your thoughts!
Below is everything you need to set up your Raspberry Pi 4 Model B with the Waveshare 5.5 Inch AMOLED Screen.
- A Raspberry Pi Palm-Sized Computer (in my case I have used a Raspberry Pi 4 Model B 2GB but this display is perfect for an earlier lower-spec Pi like the Raspberry Pi 3)
- Waveshare 5.5 Inch AMOLED Screen (1980x1080)
- Micro SD Card flashed with Raspberry Pi OS
- Power Supply
- Mouse and Keyboard
The first natural step is to get all the hardware connected up correctly. To do this go through the following steps. Firstly see the image below for what you are presented with when you purchase this Waveshare screen (Raspberry Pi 4 Model B not included, only there for scale).
Inside the box, you will find the following: a 3m HDMI connector, a microfibre cloth, a USB to USB Micro USB connector, the 5.5 Inch AMOLED Screen, and a bag of standoffs/connectors. See the image below of all of this.
Just for reference the Screen compared to the size of a Raspberry Pi 4 Model B can be seen in the image below. That Raspberry Pi is what we're going to strap to the back of this sweet screen.
The backside of the Screen can be seen in the image below, note the standoffs (which we will be screwing our fasteners to) are all highlighted in yellow. This yellow is Kapton Tape, is installed from the factory and can now be removed by peeling it off.
Pulling out all the parts from the static-proof bag of fasteners and connections you will see exactly the same parts as in the image below. The fastener in the bag each has spares, so fear not if you drop one of those little screws into your shag carpet and it disappears into another dimension. The two connectors that you can see on the top right of the below image are for Raspberry Pi 3 Model B and earlier. These boards have full-sized HDMI connectors on them. The two connectors on the bottom right of the image are for the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B Handheld Computer.
To start the assembly process use the smallest size standoff and screw them into the 4 central holes of the board. This has been done in the image below for reference.
Then with that complete lay your chosen Raspberry Pi 4 Model B Board on top of these standoffs so the holes line up. Then screw them in using the supplied M2.5 screws. See this having happened in the image below.
With the Raspberry PI secured to the 5.5 Inch AMOLED screen let's turn our attention to the electrical connections. See this occurring in the image below for a Raspberry Pi 4 Model B Board. If you are using a Raspberry Pi 3 or earlier board which has full-sized HDMI ports make sure to use the other set of electrical connectors. Press in both gently and firmly taking care not to overstress either board. The connections when fully seated look like they're not fully in (in my opinion) so take care not to overdo it with unnecessary force.
With that complete insert a flashed Micro-SD card with Raspberry Pi OS installed into your Raspberry Pi Single Board Computer. Then plug-in power to the system through the USB-C port (like the image below) or by using the Micro-USB port of the AMOLED screen. This will spring your system to life! Also, take the time to add the extra-long stand-offs on the corner of the screen so that you can rest the system comfortably upwards on the table.
Thus turn your screen around, remove the screen protector (oddly these screens come with two layers of screen protectors), and marvel at your beautiful, new, high definition, AMOLED screen.
Configuring Screen and Touch
By default, the display will be in Portrait as you can see from the image above. Turning this display to the landscape orientation we will need to adjust both the AMOLED display and the touch input. To start by attaching a mouse and keyboard to your system.
Now with the screen operational and Raspberry Pi OS running, the best method to turn the AMOLED display is to click on the Raspberry Pi Symbol on the top left of the screen. Scroll down to | Preferences | and then select | Screen Configuration |. Having done this it will open up the | Screen Layout Editor |. From here select the | Configure | top-down menu, go down and hover over | Screens |, hover over | HDMI 1 |, hover over | Orientation | and select | Right |. Then after a reboot, your screen will be orientated to Landscape mode. Check the image below to see the locations of these options.
Now we will add some changes into the | Config.txt | so we can add some tweaks to get the best out of the screen. Open up the Terminal by clicking on the black button on the top left of the screen. Once here type and enter the following two lines to access the | Config.txt file |.
cd /boot
sudo nano /boot/config.txt
As soon as you enter that last line a screen like the image below will appear in the terminal.
Scroll to the bottom of this using the arrow keys on your keyboard. Then copy and paste the following directly into it. You will need to right-click using your mouse to paste it into the terminal.
max_framebuffer_height=1920
max_usb_current=1
config_hdmi_boost=10
hdmi_group=2
hdmi_force_hotplug=1
hdmi_mode=87
hdmi_timings=1080 1 26 4 50 1920 1 8 2 6 0 0 0 60 0 135580000 3
Having done this press Ctrl-X, Y, and then Enter Key to save these changes. Do this by On reboot, your screen will have rotated 90 degrees and all the tweaks will be added. See this in the image below (I have also installed it into my 3D printed case check here for STL files and watch the end of the above video for the assembly process).
After rebooting you will notice that the touch will now need to be rotated as the Hardware is not aware of the rotation of the screen. To do this we will open up the terminal once again using that black button on the top left of the screen. Copy and paste each command into the terminal, press Enter, and allow it to finish before moving onto the next command. If ever prompted with “Do you want to continue? (y/n)” press Y and then the Enter key to continue the process.
sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-input-libinput
sudo mkdir /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d
sudo cp /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/40-libinput.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/
sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/40-libinput.conf
This opens up a configuration menu that at first glance looks a lot like the | config.txt | file. Scroll to the section referring to the touchscreen. Then add the following statement inside for 90-degree rotation by copying and pasting it directly beneath the | Match IsTouchscreen "on" |. See the below image for what this will look like with the line added highlighted with a red box around it.
Option "CalibrationMatrix" "0 1 0 -1 0 1 0 0 1"
Once you have done you can now, like before, press Ctrl-X, Y, and then Enter Key to save these changes. Then reboot your Raspberry Pi System to make these changes present. After completing these steps the LCD will have rotated 90 degrees for both display and touch as well as having all the necessary tweaks to get this screen to perform its best. If another touch orientation rotation is desired add one of the following statements inside the configuration menu.
For 180 degree rotation instead add --> Option "CalibrationMatrix" "-1 0 1 0 -1 1 0 0 1"
For 270 degree rotation instead add --> Option "CalibrationMatrix" "0 -1 1 1 0 0 0 0 1"
Set up Screen Savers to Prevent Burn-In
AMOLED Screen Suffer Burn-in. This is an important factor to be aware of. Much like plasma screens of old if you have the same image on the screen too long it will cause burn-ins. Its good to change up what the screen is presenting at least each hour. Waveshare has tested this and found that the AMOLED screen cannot be restored to normal if it displays the same static image for more than 168 hours due to this burn-in problem.
Screen Blanking is the easiest way to prevent this so make sure you have this option enabled. You can find this option in the Raspberry Pi Configuration Menu.
The most fun way to fix this, whilst showing off how beautiful this display is, is by installing X Screen Saver. To do this type and enter into your terminal the following, pressing Y if prompted.
sudo apt install xscreensaver
Having done this you will be able to find a new option in the Preferences Menu (accessible by clicking on the Raspberry Pi Symbol on the top left of the screen) called Screensaver. Clicking on this will open the Screensaver settings menu. There are literally around a hundred screen savers to choose from, the choice is yours, just make sure to pick one which does not have static colours (or adjust the settings as I have below so that it will cycle between them each minute and start after 2 minutes of inactivity). Many of these screensavers are really very pretty or fun like the Pacman seen below.
If some of the screensavers are not installed from the get-go and are listed as 'Not Installed' type and enter the two below lines into a new terminal to force install them all.
sudo apt-get update
apt-cache search xscreensaver*
Great Use Cases for this AMOLED Screen
Now the screen tearing that this screen has when used with a Raspberry Pi does prevent this screen from being the right choice for some applications. This tearing is non-existent when using a Jetson Nano or Windows-based computer. However, with a Raspberry Pi, it is enough to prevent this screen from being great as a mini retro game player.
However being used as a simple UI panel that has some simple controls to manage your household smart lights, aircon, plant watering systems, or any similar projects you may have, then this screen is absolutely perfect and a real ergonomic treat. See an image below of this screen being used to display the local weather, time, and date (you can do this too just follow this link here)
This UI will then blank to the selected screen savers after not being touched for 2 minutes so that way you will never suffer AMOLED burn-in whilst being aware that the system still has power to it. A quick tap at it will spring back to life and be there to provide all the information you need. If it just screens blanks it doesn't provide any positive feedback, so the XScreenSaver is really a worthwhile process.
3D Printed Case
So I got so excited using this screen that I quickly whipped up a little case with a nice bezel and feet. This lets it face me at a better angle for better viewing ergonomics whilst keeping all the electronic parts safe inside. Below are some images of my design which I remixed from MKChung22 design. This design is readily available and you can download it by clicking on the link at the bottom of this article. See some images of it mounted in the case below, keep in mind you will need some M2.5 screws to assemble this case.
