Adafruit's TSC2007 I2C Resistive Touchscreen Controller Offers Quick, Easy STEMMA QT Connectivity

Adafruit has launched a new compact resistive touchscreen controller, built around the Texas Instruments TSC2007 — and designed to provide easy connectivity via I2C over STEMMA QT connectors.

"Getting touchy performance with your screen's touch screen? Resistive touch screens are incredibly popular as overlays to TFT and LCD displays," the company writes of its latest product. "Only problem is they require a bunch of analog pins and you have to keep polling them since the overlays themselves are basically just big potentiometers."

The new TSC2007-based touchscreen controller board aims to fix that, handling connectivity to the resistive overlay and providing addressability over I2C — plus a bonus interrupt pin, designed to wake up a connected microcontroller when a touch is detected.

The board's design includes a 3V voltage regulator and level shifting, making it suitable for use with 3.3V and 5V microcontrollers, and comes with a 1mm-pitch FPC connector for connection to a range of touchscreen overlays. For board which lack the same type of connector, breakouts are provided for the four X/Y connections.

To support developers, Adafruit has released two libraries for the TSC2007: One for Arduino compatible microcontrollers, and the other for CircuitPython and Python running on a microcontroller, Raspberry Pi, or other device.

The controller is available now from the Adafruit store, priced at just $4.95 before volume discounts; a compatible 3.7" touchscreen overlay can be also purchased for $5.95.