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I am using a raspberry pi model 2 for some home automation tasks. I need a small display (touchscreen not really needed) to show system status (power usage graphs, which devices are on, etc). BUT I do not want to use the GPIO pins as they are needed for other things. This is a shame because I see touchscreens using GPIO pins for about $20, which is a good price for me.

Are there any small screens on the market that do NOT use GPIO pins? Any in the $20 to $40 range?

osbert
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  • Welcome -- but shopping recommendations are explicitly off-topic. If you are considering a specific piece of hardware and would like to ask how and/or if it is usable with the pi, that's fine. – goldilocks Sep 22 '17 at 17:44
  • Ah, OK. My apologies. I guess I should have phrased my question along the lines of: "I see lots of small screens that use the GPIO pins at low prices, but not ones that do not (except much more expensive ones). Do they exist at all? Anyway, you have helped me to some degree, thankyou. – osbert Sep 22 '17 at 19:02

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There certainly are products using the graphics output. Here's a 7" screen at £31 that runs off 12V. This model is VGA but the with extra cost of an HDMI-VGA converter it still comes in cheaper than the HDMI version.

Here's a 5" HDMI monitor with touchscreen (over USB) at £26. I'm thinking about getting a couple of these for my lab but haven't yet, so haven't tested.

I assume that on this sort of thing you'll get $1=£1 or near enough, which would put both of these in your budget.

A search term that seems to work on eBay or Amazon is "mini monitor" (with or without "HDMI").

Chris H
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  • Thanks Chris. The 5" at £26 has GPIO pins on it, right (I see them on the image for the back of the display)? – osbert Sep 22 '17 at 17:11
  • @osbert You're right; that screen does not appear to use USB for touch; I would assume the micro jack is for power. However, Chris is right in that if you search amazon for "small hdmi monitor tft" you'll find various things that aren't intended just for the Pi. They are a bit over budget, but this one looks to be on sale. – goldilocks Sep 22 '17 at 17:40
  • ...Except whoops, it doesn't have touch (I thought that's what TFT referred to, but live and learn). Anyway, you can search for stuff as easily as anyone else; generally speaking people selling products do not try to hide them on the web. That and the desire to avoid becoming a free classified ad site are the reason shopping recs are off-topic. – goldilocks Sep 22 '17 at 17:47
  • The specs say "USB touch and power". So I don't know what the pins are for unless it can do touch over GPIO as well. TFT stands for thin film transistor; it describes the LCD display and is also used for TVs (@goldilocks and osbert) – Chris H Sep 22 '17 at 18:30
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    From answers to questions on amazon (including a rather cryptic one from the seller), it seems that the GPIO pins are needed for touch and the usb is only for power. For my purposes though (not needing touch) that is ok. Thankyou. – osbert Sep 22 '17 at 20:22