Your board has a built in Display. Boards running the WipperSnapper firmware can be wirelessly controlled by Adafruit IO to write to Displays.
On this page, you'll learn how to change the font size, and update the message content of the display built into your board from Adafruit IO.
The MagTag comes in two variants, the older pre-2025 edition which uses the ILI0343 display driver, and the newer 2025 revision that uses the SSD1680 driver.
To make life easier, we've created a "MagTag Display" component that auto-detects the correct screen!
If you used the Magic Config button to automatically configure the components on your board, then the Display component will already be configured. Skip ahead to the Usage section.
Don't know about Magic Config? Click the Auto-Config button on the device page for further details!
On the device page, click the New Component (or "+") button to open the component picker.
Adafruit IO supports a large amount of components, try searching for Display to see all the supported displays.
Since WipperSnapper supports such a large number of components, you can use keyword filtering. Try searching for various keywords, like:
- component names:
aht20,servo,buzzer,button,neopixel, etc - sensor types:
light,temperature,pressure,humidity, etc - interface:
i2c,uart,ds18x20,pin,display, etc (also I2C addresses e.g.0x44) - vendor:
Adafruit,ASAIR,Infineon,Bosch,Honeywell,Sensirion, etc - display type / driver / family:
st7789,ili0373,sh1107,seg,lcd
There are also product and documentation links for every component. Follow the links beneath the component descriptions to be taken to the appropriate product page, Learn Guide, or datasheet.
To quickly find your display, type MagTag into the search bar, then select the 2.9" MagTag Display component, which will automatically detect the correct screen variant (SSD1680 / ILI0343).
There will be a back button if you select the wrong component, and you can use the Edit component icon (⚙️) on the device page to update the component configuration in the future.
On the component configuration page, you setup the display's SPI bus number and pins, or I2C address, along with the components settings.
The Display pins / address will be automatically selected in the drop-down menus where possible, and it's fine to leave some optional pins not selected.
Finally, choose any preferences like font size and rotation, then click Create.
After adding the component, your device page should show the newly created display component row, and the display attached to your board should refresh / turn on when the component is added.
If appropriate, your display may also show a status bar with connection info (username, connection status, WiFi strength, and battery level).
Usage
To send a message to the display, click on the Pen button at the end of the display component row, then fill in the dialog and click Send:
To send a forced line break, use the backslash symbol ( \ ) followed by the letter n for new line: \n
e.g. Line1 \n Line2\nLine3
The displays do accept true line breaks too (hitting the Enter/Return key in the text input box above, or sending \n or \r\n via JSON).
Feeds drive the display and store the data
The display component is connected to a feed, which means that you can send data to the feed and have it immediately appear on screen.
This can be really useful when combined with automated Actions.
It also means there is a history of messages. To view the feed data that has been previously sent to the display, click on the graph icon at the end of the component row.
Here you can see the feed history and edit things about the feed such as the name, privacy, webhooks associated with the feed and more. If you want to learn more about how feeds work, check out this page.
Lastly, take note of the Settings Gear (⚙️) at the end of the component row, where you can alter the components configuration.
This will show you the same dialog as when you added the display, along with any advanced options. It's also where you can remove and rename components.
Continue on with this guide to learn about the other component types, or maybe look at setting up an automated Action to write to the display.
Page last edited December 19, 2025
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