Adafruit
Adafruit PiTFT Plus 320x240 2.8 TFT + Capacitive Touchscreen
The Adafruit PiTFT Plus 2.8" Capacitive Touchscreen is a finger-friendly colour display for the Raspberry Pi. Unlike resistive touchscreens that need a stylu...
The Adafruit PiTFT Plus 2.8" Capacitive Touchscreen is a finger-friendly colour display for the Raspberry Pi. Unlike resistive touchscreens that need a stylus or fingernail, this capacitive version responds to a light finger touch and features a polished black bezel with a glass overlay for a clean, modern look.
The display communicates over SPI for graphics and I2C for the capacitive touch controller. All 40 GPIO pins are broken out underneath so you can still connect a GPIO ribbon cable. Four built-in slim tactile switches are wired to GPIO for building simple user interfaces like power buttons or menu navigation.
Key Features
- 2.8" TFT Display – 320×240 resolution with 16-bit colour (65,536 colours)
- Capacitive Touchscreen – Finger-friendly touch input with glass overlay and black bezel
- SPI + I2C Interface – SPI for display (SCK, MOSI, MISO, CE0, GPIO 24/25); I2C (SDA/SCL) for touch controller, shareable with other I2C devices
- 4 Tactile Buttons – Pre-installed slim switches wired to GPIO for custom UI
- 40-Pin GPIO Passthrough – All pins brought out underneath for ribbon cable access
- Fully Assembled – Ready to plug in with tactile switches pre-installed
- Custom Kernel Support – Easy framebuffer installation over standard Raspberry Pi OS
Compatibility
- Raspberry Pi Zero / Zero 2 W
- Raspberry Pi 1 Model A+ and B+
- Raspberry Pi 2, 3, 4, 5
- Any Pi with a 2×20 GPIO header (not compatible with original Pi 1 Model A/B 2×13 header)
Also Consider
- PiTFT 2.8" Resistive – Same size with resistive touch, fits the original Pi 1 Model A/B form factor
- PiTFT 2.4" HAT – Smaller resistive touchscreen in HAT form factor
- PiTFT 2.2" HAT – Compact non-touch version
Ideal For
- Touch-enabled interfaces and portable Pi projects
- Mini consoles, retro gaming handhelds, and media players
- IoT dashboards and interactive control panels
- PyGame and SDL-based graphical applications
Package Contents
- 1× Adafruit PiTFT Plus 2.8" Capacitive (fully assembled with display, touchscreen, and tactile switches)
Resources
Jargon buster
Plain-language definitions for the technical terms used above.
- GPIO
- General-purpose input/output pins are microcontroller pins you can set in software to read signals, switch devices on and off, or connect to peripherals. The number of GPIO pins matters because it limits how many buttons, LEDs, sensors, and other parts you can wire directly to the board.
- I2C
- I2C is a two-wire communication bus used by many sensors and small modules. It matters because several I2C devices can share the same two wires, but each device needs a compatible address and your controller must support I2C.
- IoT
- Short for Internet of Things, meaning physical devices that connect to networks or the internet to send data or be controlled remotely. It matters if you want projects such as connected sensors, remote controls or classroom data-logging activities.
- SDA/SCL
- SDA and SCL are the two signal lines used by an I2C bus: data and clock. Seeing these names helps you identify the correct connections when wiring I2C devices, even though Qwiic cables usually hide that wiring for you.
- SPI
- A fast serial communication bus often used for displays, memory cards, and sensors. It matters because SPI devices need specific pins for clock and data, plus a separate chip-select line for each device.
- TFT
- A thin-film transistor display is a common type of colour LCD used for graphics screens. Knowing a product is for TFTs helps you check that the driver board matches the display’s connector, resolution, backlight, and signalling method.
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Related Tutorials
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