A POV display aka propeller display/clock is a display that uses the
Persistence Of Vision (POV). By turning just a few LEDs on and off at a
specific position around a circle, a full display that would normally require
hundreds of LEDs can be created. This illusion of a still image is due to the
eye's slow refresh rate. Without this perk we would see moving pictures
instead of videos and obnoxious LED lights caused by PWM in daily life.
If you think about it is is an interesting and fun project to experiment with.
This will be more obvious in part 2 where we will discuss the code and the
basic principles. It can be used as a clock or display text from internet in
real-time or for image display.
Here is a video with the POV display controlled by an Android app. Needless to
say it looks better in person. The display can be styled by different LED
colors.