Gorgeous programmable LED matrix displays with wireless connectivity and oodles of fancy extras!

Our space Unicorns are very beautiful, all-in-one, RP2040 powered LED matrices perfect for conveying information fabulously (or for sprucing up your desktop, makingspace or imaginarium). There's a ton of features aboard, here are some of our favourites!
Loads* of RGB LEDs, all with individual colour and brightness control. We're in mad love with these big bright squircular LEDs with their rounded apertures and built in diffusion.
Looks great on video - invoking RP2040 magic means we can update the LEDs really quickly (we measured around 300 fps at 14-bit precision). This means there's no nasty strobing, artifacting or brightness stepping when it's filmed, so it's perfect for adding to the background of your streaming setup.
2.4GHz wireless connectivity (courtesy of the Raspberry Pi Pico W) so you can use it to display all sorts of interesting data from the internet.
There's also an onboard amp and little speaker for bleepy alerts and *futuristic noises* and a battery connector so you can power it without it having to be tethered to a USB port. Every Unicorn comes with a pair of sleek little metal legs so it can stand up on its own (and has a selection of mounting holes if you'd prefer to do something else).

Use it to make a very fancy clock, a very fancy weather display or a very fancy output for sensors (other very fancy use cases are available).

Which Unicorn to choose?

All varieties of Unicorn have the same great core features: buttons, a speaker, a battery connector and an onboard Pico W. However, there's now three different shapes and sizes, with varying amounts of LEDs. Here's a little comparison chart to make sure you get just the right amount (like mecha-Goldilocks

Unicorn	*How many LEDs	Arranged in a...	Size of board (L x W x D)
Stellar	256	16 x 16 square grid	108 x 108 x 10.2 mm
Galactic	583	53 x 11 wide grid	330 x 78 x 10.2 mm
Cosmic	1024	32 x 32 square grid	204 x 204 x 10.2 mm

Features:

Raspberry Pi Pico W Aboard

Dual Arm Cortex M0+ running at up to 133Mhz with 264kB of SRAM
2MB of QSPI flash supporting XiP
Powered and programmable by USB micro-B
2.4GHz wireless

256/583/1024 RGB LEDs in a 16x16/53x11/32x32 grid

3.5mm LEDs with rounded square apertures
6mm LED spacing
Driven by FM6047 constant current LED drivers

MAX98357 3.2W I2S Mono Amplifier (with 30mm 1W speaker)
Phototransistor for light sensing
9 tactile user buttons
Reset button
2x Qw/ST (Qwiic/STEMMA QT) connectors
JST-PH connector for attaching a battery (5.5V max)
Fully assembled
No soldering required.
C/C++ and MicroPython libraries
Schematics - Stellar / Galactic / Cosmic

Downloads:

Notes:

Power consumption stats! ⚡ We measured Galactic and Cosmic Unicorn as consuming just over 1A at maximum brightness, full white. When choosing a battery, consider that the LEDs will look their absolute best when they have access to at least 3.6V of power. At lower voltage levels you will start to see the blue elements of the LEDs fading out - this starts to become very noticeable at 2.9V and below. For best results when running on battery, we'd suggest using a chunky LiPo (check out the extras for some suggestions).

Note that Unicorns have no battery charging hardware onboard - this is so you can use either alkaline or LiPo batteries safely. You'll need to charge up your LiPo battery with a separate battery charger (we like LiPo Amigo).

Note that Unicorns have no battery charging hardware onboard - this is so you can use either alkaline or LiPo batteries safely. You'll need to charge up your LiPo battery with a separate battery charger (we like LiPo Amigo).
Squircle alert! Some batches of Unicorns have LEDs with more rounded apertures (though the LED specs and brightness remain the same). They all look good, but if you want a perfectly visually matched pair (or stable) of Unicorns it's probably best to buy them at the same time.

Package Includes: