ChibiMo – An AVR-based USB Display

chibimo_usb_arduino_external_monitor

[Ko] wanted to add an extra monitor to his computer, but he wasn’t looking for something huge that would sit atop his desk – he desired something smaller, much smaller.

His ChibiMo mini USB monitor is a neat little creation that lets you extend or mirror your Windows desktop onto a tiny 128×64 pixel LCD panel. At first glance you might think that it is too small to be useful, but it is recognized in Windows in the same fashion as any standard monitor. This means that it would be quite easy to load system monitoring software solely on the LCD panel, keeping the clutter off of your main display.

The display is wired to an Arduino like any other standard shield, and is connected to his computer via a USB cable. Once the ChibiMo sketch is uploaded to the Arduino, the display driver needs to be loaded on the PC. This allows you to tweak the ChibiMo’s display settings in Windows’ display manager.

It’s a great concept, one we would love to see explored further. As of right now, the ChibiMo is only supported on x86 versions of Windows XP, and we weren’t able to find source links anywhere on his site. Perhaps there are some talented members of our community who would be interested in taking a whack at it…