Hardware
There are multiple ways of assembling a fugleramme frame. Other hardware variants and combinations might work, but haven't been verified. If you come up with something cool, let me know!
Note
I'm affiliated with Pimoroni. Buying through the links on this page, or using the code ARNE at checkout, supports this project.
Full build (with BirdNET-Go)
The full build, from hearing the birds in your own garden to drawing them on the display. If you already run BirdNET-Go somewhere, skip to Frame only below.
| Part | What I recommend |
|---|---|
| Board | Raspberry Pi 5, 2 GB |
| Storage | microSD card (32 GB or more) |
| Cooling | Raspberry Pi Active Cooler |
| Panel | Inky Impression 13.3" (Spectra 6, 1600x1200) |
| Mic | Clippy EM272Z1 mono, the 3.5 mm one (in the EU it's easier from Veldshop) |
| Sound card | UGREEN USB audio adapter, model US205 (article number 30724) |
| Power | Official Raspberry Pi 27W USB-C power supply |
| Frame | IKEA RÖDALM 21x30 (A4) |
Why these
- 2 GB RAM is enough to run everything. BirdNET-Go does the classifying and the frame only renders a collage every few minutes, and at the time of writing Pis with more RAM are very expensive.
- 32 GB or more storage, to hold the sound clips and the artwork.
- The active cooler is not optional. BirdNET-Go runs the classifier continuously, and the Pi 5 runs surprisingly hot.
- The official power supply. Anything weaker and the Pi throttles or browns out under load.
- The mic matters more than the Pi. Detection is BirdNET-Go's job, and how well it does comes down mostly to the mic, how you configure it and where you put it. The EM272Z1 is the gold standard for the birding and field-recording crowd - see Microphones below.
- The sound card, because the Clippy is analogue. The Pi has no audio input, and the mic needs plug-in power on a 3.5 mm jack. The UGREEN supplies it and needs no drivers.
BirdNET-Go has its own hardware page, which goes deeper on the audio side than I do here (more sound cards, a DIY capsule, and what you need if you want to hear bats).
Frame only (external or existing BirdNET-Go)
No mic, no sound card, no BirdNET-Go on the Pi. It reads from one you already run elsewhere on the network, so the frame can hang anywhere.
| Part | What works |
|---|---|
| Board | Raspberry Pi 5 (1 GB is plenty), Pi 4, or a Pi Zero 2 W with the 40-pin header installed |
| Storage | microSD card, 16 GB or more |
| Panel | Inky Impression 13.3" (Spectra 6, 1600x1200) |
| Power | The official supply for whichever board - 27 W USB-C for a Pi 5, 5 V micro-USB for a Zero |
| Frame | IKEA RÖDALM 21x30 (A4) |
- Any 40-pin Pi drives the panel - thanks to Pimoroni's
inkylibrary. A Zero 2 W renders more slowly, which you might not notice on a panel that takes half a minute anyway. Alternatives says what's verified. - The cooler is optional. Nothing is classifying around the clock here, so the Pi pretty much idles between renders.
- Less storage. No sound clips, no detection database.
- You do need a BirdNET-Go it can reach. Give its address during the install (see Where BirdNET-Go "lives"), or set it later on the admin page.
Battery-powered frame (external Fugleramme)
This setup swaps the Raspberry Pi for a small, power-efficient microcontroller that drives the E Ink panel. Your existing Raspberry Pi with BirdNET-Go and Fugleramme does the heavy lifting, and the microcontroller simply downloads the raw image data from it to its own screen. That lets it run from a battery, so the frame has no wires.
| Part | What works |
|---|---|
| Board | XIAO ePaper Display Board EE02 |
| Panel | Seeed Studio 13.3" e-ink (Spectra 6, 1600x1200) |
| Power | Rechargeable single-cell lithium battery (3.7 V, with a JST 2.0 connector to match the XIAO board) |
| Frame | IKEA RÖDALM 21x30 (A4) |
- Seeed Studio also sells the board and panel together as a kit.
Microphones
Any USB mic works - run.sh picks the capture device from arecord -l, and you
select it in BirdNET-Go's own settings.
Re-run ./run.sh after swapping mics. It's still the one part worth spending
money on:
| Mic | Connection | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Clippy EM272Z1 mono | 3.5 mm, needs the sound card | What I recommend. Low noise, high sensitivity, 1 m cable. |
| Boya BY-M3 | USB-C, so a USB-C to USB-A adapter | What I originally built with (no longer made). |
| Neewer USB lapel mic | USB-A | Pimoroni's recommended stand-in for the BY-M3. Untested. |
| Boya BY-M1 | 3.5 mm TRRS, needs the sound card | Cheap, 6 m cable, LR44 battery in camera mode (untested). |
| Clippy Ultra XLR | XLR, needs an interface with phantom power | Up to 110 kHz, so bats too (reported a little behind the EM272Z1 on birds). |
| AudioMoth USB microphone | USB-A | Bats too. Pricey, but people like it. |
Whatever you pick, put a windshield (and environmental protection) on it if it lives outdoors (wind straight on the capsule drowns out everything else).
Alternatives
- Other boards. A Pi 4 and a Pi Zero 2 W both work - people are running them, the Zero just renders more slowly. A Pi 5 with 1 GB should be plenty for a frame that isn't also classifying. (None of these are officially supported yet, only because I don't have units to verify on).
- NVMe instead of microSD spares the card BirdNET-Go's constant writes, but the HAT/Base adds cost, height and heat for a mostly idle workload - and the drives are crazy expensive right now.
- Other Inky displays work, you just lose resolution and size. The 7.3" fits a smaller frame, see Mounting. Alternatively skip the panel: the frame serves the same page as a web kiosk, on a TV, over HDMI or headless - see Screens.
Enclosure/Frame
Both panels fit an IKEA RÖDALM picture frame, the 13.3" in the 21x30 and the 7.3" in the 13x18. Putting it together, airflow, and standing or hanging it are in Mounting.