The displays have 320 x 320px square addressable pixels, but only the circular portion is displayed - that is to say you can draw pixels as though they were there in the lower corner, past the radius of the circle, but nothing gets drawn.
Always thought round LCDs (and rounded corners on displays and now GUI windows) were stupid, and this explains exactly why. What would otherwise be perfectly usable pixels are missing, and the panel itself is still square.
If you've ever used a Nest thermostat before, you'd understand why a square display would be stupider.
It would either:
1. force a larger interface so the square display could have its diagonal fully enclosed by the diameter of the radial control (i.e., oafishly large thermostat too big for a human hand to easily manipulate)
2. force a smaller LCD to fit inside a normal hand-sized radial control, making it less readable to all but the spriteliest of youths
3. make a radial control that is a spinning rhombus, which is pretty ugly
Or we could just do what the Nest does and the only person who "suffers" is the original designer, one time, when they write the code
Like... this is a thing meant to be operated at arm's length. Some extra pixels aren't going to meaningfully improve how you view the current temperature.
[1] https://www.espressif.com/sites/default/files/documentation/...
IMHO the Nest is hands-down the best thermostat hardware out there. It's a case study in simplicity, elegance, and intuitive UI. I have bought a couple of them, and am likely to buy more in the future should I need another thermostat for any reason.
Google locking it down more and more, and bricking old hardware versions, is a case study in hardware enshitification. For this reason I am very hesitant to buy more.
I agree that I want something aesthetically pleasing if it’s going to be displayed on the walls of my home where I entertain. Nest has always been the best for this, but the software has limited it. Hence, Sett - open source PCBs in the beautiful Nest enclosure
