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Rainbow HAT
Rainbow HAT is a feature-packed add-on board for the Raspberry Pi, loaded with sensors, inputs, displays, and LEDs. Use it as a weather station, clock, timer...
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Rainbow HAT is a feature-packed add-on board for the Raspberry Pi, loaded with sensors, inputs, displays, and LEDs. Use it as a weather station, clock, timer, mood light, or as a hands-on introduction to multiple Pi communication protocols including SPI, I²C, GPIO, and PWM.
Originally developed in collaboration with Google's Android Things team, Rainbow HAT also has a comprehensive Python library for use on Raspberry Pi OS.
Key Features
- 7× APA102 RGB LEDs – Individually addressable multicolour LEDs (SPI)
- 4× 14-Segment Alphanumeric Displays – Green LEDs driven by HT16K33 (I²C)
- 3× Capacitive Touch Buttons – Atmel QT1070 driver (I²C)
- BMP280 Sensor – Temperature and pressure (I²C)
- Piezo Buzzer – PWM-driven for tones and alerts
- 3× Status LEDs – Blue, green, and red (GPIO)
- Breakout Pins – Servo, I²C, SPI, and UART (all 3.3 V)
Compatibility
- Raspberry Pi 3B+, 3, 2, B+, A+, Zero, and Zero W
Resources
Jargon buster
Plain-language definitions for the technical terms used above.
- breakout
- A breakout board carries a small or fine-pitched component and brings its connections out to standard, breadboard- and header-friendly pins. Describing a part as a breakout means it can be wired into a project without soldering directly to the component's tiny contacts.
- 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.
- PoE
- Power over Ethernet lets one Ethernet cable carry both network data and electrical power. This is useful when installing a device where running a separate power adaptor would be difficult.
- PWM
- Pulse Width Modulation is a way for a digital pin to simulate variable output power by switching on and off very quickly. It matters for controlling things like LED brightness, motor speed, or servo-style signals from a microcontroller pin.
- RGB
- Short for red, green and blue, the three primary colours of light that are mixed in varying amounts to make a wide range of colours. In electronics RGB can refer to an LED or pixel that blends these three colours, or to a colour signal or interface that carries separate red, green and blue channels.
- servo
- A servo is a motor with built-in position control, usually told to move to a specific angle by a control signal. It matters when you need repeatable movement, such as steering, arms, flaps, or linkages, rather than continuous spinning.
- 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.
- UART
- UART is a simple asynchronous serial interface that sends data over separate transmit and receive wires, usually labelled TX and RX, with both ends set to the same baud rate. It is a common way for microcontrollers and other serial devices to exchange data.
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