Is there a "good" way to only update changed pixels?

[cyrlop]

Is there a way to speed-up the refresh process by only changing specific pixels instead of going through the whole blinking/flashing cycle?

I use my Inky phat (black) to display a big number at the center, updating every 6 to 20 seconds, it works well so far.

There a couple of solutions around but none that I can figure out how to translate to my inky phat black:

• This guy on the Pimoroni forum did explained it well
• This one changed timing for pwnagotchi project

In summary: is the only way to optimize refresh to mess with timings risking damaging the screen or is there a cleaner way if only few pixels change?

[Gadgetoid]

I’ve done a lot of messing with the timings and haven’t damaged a screen yet.

Some displays do support updating a region of the display, but I’m not sure any of ours do.

Most of the blinking/flashing is an attempt to erase the previous image from the screen and avoid image retention- you can drastically shorten this period and then run a periodic full update to clean up the screen. If you’ve ever used an e-reader you might notice them doing this.

[cyrlop]

Thanks for the clarification!
The issue is I have no idea how to do it. I have the "ssd1608" screen (black).
I know I'm supposed to change some timings at this line but have no idea about the values to remove the black and white flashing.

I plan to display the new image as fast as possible and run a full cycle (or clean.py) from times to times.

Thanks again for the help!

[tilusnet]

is there any similar hack at hand for the UC8159 chip?

[Gadgetoid]

is there any similar hack at hand for the UC8159 chip?

Nope. There is no partial update support, nor even support for custom LUTs.