For the past month or so I’ve been working on a weather display that uses the amazing Galactic Unicorn LED Matrix from the Pirates at Pimoroni. This board has a Raspberry Pi Pico W onboard on the back along with a speaker, several user-controllable buttons, battery connection and some Qw/ST (Qwiic/STEMMA QT) connectors.
Around the front, you will find 583 RGB LEDs in a 53 x 11 grid. This gives ample space for scrolling messages, pictographs and more. In my use, I will be displaying a graphic depicting the current weather along with the text of the current temperature and the current time in 24-hour format.

The image above shows one of the weather readings. I will be working on more code and images for this over the next few months as time allows. The most time-consuming element is creating images that are small, so I can fit them all in the limited memory of the Raspberry Pi Pico W. Making them look good at a sensible viewing distance is also time-consuming.
If you want a stab at running this yourself, the current code is on Git Hub Gists:
A Threaded weather and clock display for the #Pimoroni #GlacticUnicorn (github.com)
import urequests as requests
import json
import network
import secrets
from picographics import PicoGraphics, DISPLAY_GALACTIC_UNICORN as DISPLAY
from galactic import GalacticUnicorn
import jpegdec, math, ntptime, time
import _thread
blink=0
machine.freq(200000000)
rtc = machine.RTC()
year, month, day, wd, hour, minute, second, _ = rtc.datetime()
last_second = second
blink = 0
galactic = GalacticUnicorn()
graphics = PicoGraphics(DISPLAY)
#Timer global variables
last_time_sync = time.time()
last_cheerlight_check = time.time()
utc_offset = 0
def sync_time():
global wlan
if not wifi_available:
return
if not wlan.isconnected():
wifi_connect()
try:
ntptime.settime()
#print("Time set")
except OSError as e:
print(e)
pass
def sync_time_if_reqd():
global last_time_sync
if time.time() - last_time_sync > 86400: #Sync once per day
#print ("Running Time Sync")
sync_time()
last_time_sync = time.time()
WHITE = graphics.create_pen(255, 255, 255)
BLACK = graphics.create_pen(0, 0, 0)
BACKGROUND_COLOUR = (10, 0, 96) # Blue
OUTLINE_COLOUR = (0, 0, 0)
MESSAGE_COLOUR = (255, 255, 255)
city = 'Colchester'
country_code = 'UK'
#example
#city = 'Lahore'
#country_code = 'PAK'
width = GalacticUnicorn.WIDTH
height = GalacticUnicorn.HEIGHT
open_weather_map_api_key = '<API_KEY>'
station = network.WLAN(network.STA_IF)
station.active(True)
station.connect(secrets.WIFI_SSID, secrets.WIFI_PASSWORD)
while station.isconnected() == False:
pass
def outline_text(text, x, y):
graphics.set_pen(BLACK)
graphics.text(text, x - 1, y - 1, -1, 1)
graphics.text(text, x, y - 1, -1, 1)
graphics.text(text, x + 1, y - 1, -1, 1)
graphics.text(text, x - 1, y, -1, 1)
graphics.text(text, x + 1, y, -1, 1)
graphics.text(text, x - 1, y + 1, -1, 1)
graphics.text(text, x, y + 1, -1, 1)
graphics.text(text, x + 1, y + 1, -1, 1)
graphics.set_pen(WHITE)
graphics.text(text, x, y, -1, 1)
def set_background():
# global cheercolor
graphics.set_pen(graphics.create_pen(10,0,96))
for x in range(14,width):
for y in range(0,height):
graphics.pixel(x, y)
print('Connection successful')
def redraw_weather():
while True:
#set your unique OpenWeatherMap.org URL
open_weather_map_url = 'http://api.openweathermap.org/data/2.5/weather?q=' + city + ',' + country_code + '&APPID=' + open_weather_map_api_key
weather_data = requests.get(open_weather_map_url)
# Location (City and Country code)
location = weather_data.json().get('name')
# Weather Description
description = weather_data.json().get('weather')[0].get('main')
weather_icon = weather_data.json().get('weather')[0].get('icon')
print(description)
print(weather_icon)
icon=weather_icon+'.jpg'
raw_temperature = weather_data.json().get('main').get('temp')-273.15
temperature = str(round(raw_temperature)) + '°'
print(temperature)
graphics.set_pen(graphics.create_pen(10,0,96))
for x in range(11,30):
for y in range(0,height):
graphics.pixel(x, y)
j = jpegdec.JPEG(graphics)
j.open_file(icon)
j.decode(0, 0, jpegdec.JPEG_SCALE_FULL)
graphics.set_font("bitmap8")
#graphics.set_pen(WHITE)
outline_text(temperature,13, 2)
galactic.update(graphics)
time.sleep(120)
def redraw_display_if_reqd():
global year, month, day, wd, hour, minute, second, last_second, blink
year, month, day, wd, hour, minute, second, _ = rtc.datetime()
if second != last_second:
hour += utc_offset
if hour < 0:
hour += 24
elif hour >= 24:
hour -= 24
#set_background()
graphics.set_pen(graphics.create_pen(10,0,96))
for x in range(30,width):
for y in range(0,height):
graphics.pixel(x, y)
if blink == 0:
clock = "{:02}:{:02}".format(hour, minute)
blink = 1
else:
clock = "{:02}|{:02}".format(hour, minute)
blink = 0
graphics.set_font("bitmap8")
outline_text(clock, 32, 2)
last_second = second
def redraw_time():
while True:
redraw_display_if_reqd()
galactic.update(graphics)
time.sleep(0.1)
#while True:
galactic.set_brightness(0.5)
#set_background()
second_thread = _thread.start_new_thread(redraw_time, ())
redraw_weather()
You can now also download the icons I use for this display from (https://talktech.info/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/weather.7z). You will need to extract all the files and put them onto the device.