Meet the XIAO IPS Display (nRF52840) Series: Display, Motion, Sound, and BLE in One Tiny Board
The XIAO IPS Display (nRF52840) Series is a family of ready-to-use smart device boards, available in three sizes — 1.47″, 1.14″, and 0.96″. Each board pairs a color IPS display with a 6-axis IMU, a PDM digital microphone, and Bluetooth Low Energy via the pre-soldered XIAO nRF52840 Plus, plus onboard LiPo battery management — all pre-wired on a single board.
Picture this: you want to build a small, interactive device — a badge, a wearable, a little BLE gadget — but every time you start, you end up sourcing a screen, a touch panel, an IMU, a microphone, and battery circuitry as five separate parts, then wiring them all together before you’ve even touched your actual project. If this sounds familiar, our new XIAO IPS Display series are exactly what you need!
XIAO IPS Display (nRF52840) Series — 1.47", 1.14", and 0.96", Powered by XIAO nRF52840 Plus
Today we’re excited to launch a new family of ready-to-use smart device boards, powered by the Seeed Studio XIAO nRF52840 Plus and available in three screen sizes: 1.47-inch, 1.14-inch, and 0.96-inch. Every board in the series brings together a 6-axis IMU for motion, a PDM digital MEMS microphone for sound, and BLE connectivity via the XIAO nRF52840 Plus underneath. Each also comes with onboard battery management, compatible with Arduino IDE.
The three versions are built around three different priorities.
- XIAO 1.47″ IPS Display (nRF52840) — Built for high-end display work and offline applications. Capacitive touch and a MicroSD slot make it the pick for running a local GUI, playing back local media files, or logging data on-device.
- XIAO 1.14″ IPS Display (nRF52840) — Built around everyday display and sensing needs. The screen is smaller and there’s no touch, but it adds a Grove I2C connector and more physical buttons for wiring in external sensors.
- XIAO 0.96″ IPS Display (nRF52840) — Built for size above all else. A 17.8mm equal-width design strips out the large connectors to shrink the footprint further, creating a true “micro display system.”
1.47" vs. 1.14" vs. 0.96" — Which One Is Right for You?
The XIAO IPS Display series (nRF52840) gives you three sizes to choose from. Here’s how to pick the right one for your project.
| Specification | XIAO 1.47'' IPS Display (nRF52840) | XIAO 1.14'' IPS Display (nRF52840) | XIAO 0.96'' IPS Display (nRF52840) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Product Positioning | Touch & Full Interaction | Sensing & Expansion | Ultra-Compact |
| Core Controller | Seeed Studio XIAO nRF52840 Plus | ||
| Processor | Nordic nRF52840, ARM® Cortex®-M4 32-bit processor with FPU, 64 MHz | ||
| Memory | 256KB RAM,1MB Flash 2MB onboard Flash | ||
| Wireless Connectivity | BLE 5.4 | ||
| Display Type | 1.47" IPS TFT LCD | 1.14" IPS TFT LCD | 0.96" IPS TFT LCD |
| Resolution | 172 × 320 | 135 × 240 | 80 × 160 |
| Display Driver | JD9853A | ST7789 | ST7789 |
| Display Interface | SPI | ||
| Touch Input | Capacitive Touch | No | No |
| 6-Axis IMU | Yes | ||
| PDM Digital Microphone | Yes | ||
| MicroSD Card Slot | Yes | No | No |
| Grove I2C Connector | No | Yes | No |
| User Buttons | 2 | 3 | 2 |
| Battery Connector | 2-pin JST 2.0 Connector for 3.7 V LiPo | ||
| Battery Monitoring | Battery status detection supported; battery voltage can also be monitored for battery-level estimation. | ||
| Expansion Interfaces | 1x I2C pads 1x I2S pads 1x SWD pads 2x user-button pads | 1x Grove I2C Connector 1x I2C pads 1x I2S pads 1x SWD pads 3x user-button pads | 1x I2C pads 1x I2S pads |
| Board Size | 25 × 50 mm | 25 × 46.7 mm | 17.8 × 42 mm |
| Best For | Touch UI, portable HMI, local media and data logging | Portable sensor displays, Grove devices, physical controllers | Smart badges, tiny wearables, BLE status displays |
| Unit Price | USD $19.90 | USD $16.90 | USD $15.90 |
- The 1.47″ is the only model with a capacitive touch screen and a MicroSD slot, making it the pick when your project needs a real on-screen UI — menus, dashboards, local media, or on-device logs;
- The 1.14″ trades touch for a Grove I2C connector and three physical buttons, so it’s the easiest of the three to wire external sensors into — great for handheld instruments or gesture-based controllers;
- Need the smallest possible footprint? The 0.96″, at just 17.8 x 42mm, strips away the large connectors to fit into badges, pendants, and enclosures where every millimeter counts.
Why XIAO nRF52840 Plus?
The XIAO nRF52840 Plus brings Bluetooth Low Energy in the signature XIAO thumb-sized form factor. Pairing it with a pre-integrated display, sensors, and battery management means you get a genuinely BLE-first, battery-friendly platform, ideal for anything that needs to be small, mobile, and untethered from Wi-Fi infrastructure.
Compared to the standard XIAO nRF52840, the Plus variant adds nine extra GPIOs through redesigned castellations and pads on the back, built for SMD soldering. That’s exactly why it’s the right base for this display series: with a touch panel, IMU, microphone, SD card, and buttons all needing pins of their own, the extra I/O and the solder-down form factor are what let us pre-integrate all of it onto a single board instead of running out of pins halfway through the design.
3D-Printed Enclosure Designed by Community
Our community member Gokul designed a 3D-printable case for the XIAO IPS Display series, giving it a clean, wearable-ready enclosure straight out of the gate. Huge thanks to Gokul for putting this together and sharing it with the community! It’s exactly the kind of contribution that makes building on XIAO better for everyone.
See It in Action
A screen, touch, motion sensing, and sound on one small board is easiest to appreciate in motion. We put together a few quick demos to show what a first project looks like straight out of the box, from flashing the board to seeing it react on-screen, all built on the XIAO 1.47″ IPS Display.
Getting Started
The XIAO 1.47″, 1.14″, and 0.96″ IPS Displays (nRF52840) are now live for order at USD $19.9, USD $16.9, and USD $15.9 respectively via our official Webstore Bazaar, with shipping starting from today.
To help you get started quickly, we’ve prepared a comprehensive set of technical resources, including hardware documentation, getting-started guides, and development tutorials. Explore the wiki to begin building with them today.
And this is just the beginning. A Wi-Fi-enabled XIAO ESP32S3 Plus version is already on its way for projects that need connectivity beyond BLE. Stay tuned for the next addition to the series by subscribing to our bi-weekly newsletter centering around Seeed Studio XIAO. Stay up-to-date with cool projects from the community, product and Wiki updates, news, and more!
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