AdaFruit OLED Screens

How well are the AdaFruit OLED screens working with the Photon/Core? I see some posts from 2014 showing they probably work, but nothing recent.

I’m sourcing a display for local output on my first project, and I could use some dusty old 7-segment LEDs, or these nicer looking OLEDs. Would I be better off using SPI or I2C for communication? Both are new to me, so I’d be depending on libraries in Web IDE.

Hi,

I had asked a question about Adafruit displays a few months back. It was centered around LEDs and so I am not sure if OLEDs are supported. It might be worth a look. Here is the thread:

On your other question, I just opened a thread on SPI OLEDs. In my case, I have some SPI OLEDs which I purchased from eBay and work fine on Arduino, but I am looking for a Photon library. The Adafruit units may very well have better support then my cheapies. :smile:

From an I2C vs SPI angle, my screens are SPI and while they are fine, they require more pins than an equivalent I2C setup and so I would purchase I2C units another time.

Hi,

I actually got the SH1106 SPI working. There was a firmware issue that cause the problem. I am very excited about it! Check out my thread linked above discussing SPI OLEDs. I can point you too the eBay OLEDs if you want.

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SparkFun sells a Photon specific shield with a small OLED, and their stuff is open source, so you might want to take a look there. It seems that there are some voltage issues to manage, and the shield is setup for that.

Now that you mention it, I originally poo-pooed the SparkFun shield because it had a tiny screen and looked "prototype-ish". Now that I'm thinking more about what my final device should look like, including how it displays data, the shied might be a good first version. Once I have all my code working and prove the concept, I could look at swapping in a larger AdaFruit OLED and putting together a new case.

It comes with the benefit of known functionality, no need for a breadboard or perf board mount, and a very similar price tag.