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Welcome to the latest Python on Microcontrollers newsletter! Wow! This week we had the trifecta of events: this is the 300th newsletter, the announcement of new Raspberry Pi hardware and CircuitPython Day coming this Friday. That explains why this newsletter is 20% bigger and 100% more awesome. The new Raspberry Pi RP2350 will rock the Python on Hardware world with a huge leap in performance for a slight price increase. Thank you all for subscribing and here’s to the next hundred weekly issues. – Anne Barela, Editor
We’re on Discord, Twitter, and for past newsletters – view them all here. If you’re reading this on the web, subscribe here. Here’s the news this week:
300th Issue
We’re celebrating today the publishing of the 300th Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter. Published since November, 2016, we’ve provided a free resource to the Python on hardware community. Thank you to all our subscribers and contributors – Adafruit Blog.
CircuitPython Day is This Friday August 16th!
Adafruit has determined that August 16, 2024 is the snakiest day of the year and designated it CircuitPython Day! Come Celebrate with us! – Adafruit Blog.
Adafruit will have special shows and more (all times US Eastern):
- 11am 3D Hangouts with Noe & Pedro
- 1pm Maker Chat: Guy Dupont
- 2pm CircuitPython Project Highlights with Paul Cutler & Tod Kurt
- 4pm JP’s Workshop
- 5pm Deep Dive with Scott
- 6pm CircuitPython Game Jam with Tim
- More content will be announced when scheduled here.
Are you working with CircuitPython? Tag your projects #CircuitPythonDay2024 on social media and Adafruit will look to highlight them.
SPECIAL: Raspberry Pi Releases the New RP2350 Microcontroller and Pico 2 Board
Raspberry Pi released a new microcontroller, the RP2350, last Thursday in conjunction with DEF CON 23 (the official badge uses the new chip). A new board was also released, the Raspberry Pi Pico 2. The RP2350 comes in four packages, two with 30 pins and two with 48 pins providing additional GPIO (the secondary versions add 2MB of flash).
The new chips use two Arm Cortex M33 cores + floating point unit and also have two RISC-V HAZARD3 cores (only any two cores usable at a time). The clock speed is bumped to 150 MHz. With the new architecture and floating point along with 3 PIO units, the speed is about double at stock clocks, while using less power. Besides Raspberry Pi Pico 2, there are over 30 boards which have been announced at launch from a variety of vendors – Raspberry Pi News, RP2350 Datasheet (PDF), Pico 2 Datasheet (PDF)
The RP2350 Boot ROM source code – GitHub.
Adafruit’s Ladyada discusses the RP2350 and shows the new Adafruit Feather RP2350 and Metro RP2350 – YouTube.
Reviews
The new Raspberry Pi RP2350 Arm + RISC chip is to power dozens of new devices. Running lists – Tom’s Hardware and Raspberry Pi.
MicroPython and CircuitPython Support for the RP2350 Chip
CircuitPython on Friday released version 9.2.0-alpha.2350 which includes preliminary support for the new Raspberry Pi RP2350 and minor fixes and enhancements. MicroPython has a GitHub Pull Request (PR) to its codebase to support the RP2350.
Look for new builds in the repo Releases sections when the builds are working – CircuitPython and MicroPython.
RP2350 Security Features
There are multiple security features in the new Raspberry Pi RP2350. These include glitch detectors, a redundancy coprocessor, secure boot, Arm TrustZone-M, debug protection, and OTP protections. There is also a $10,000 hacking challenge from Hextree.io if someone manages to hack the chip – X Thread.
Paul Williamson (SVP and GM of the IoT LoB at Arm) interviews Eben Upton of Raspberry Pi on the secure performance of RP2350 for applications including the internet of things (IoT) – Video – X and Article – Arm.
RP2350 In Action: Real-time Audio Noise Suppression on Raspberry Pi Pico 2
Sandeep Mistry, Principal Software Engineer with Arm, goes through applying audio noise suppression to a microphone input on the Pico and the Pico 2, showing a 1,687% speed-up on the new board – Raspberry Pi News.
A Controller for Beginners to Build Advanced Robots using RP2350 MCU
Cytron demonstrates a robot controller using the new RP23500. Their product page has links to CircuitPython and MicroPython showing intention for both to run on the board – YouTube and Product.
Python Scores Its Highest Rating in The TIOBE Programming Language Index
Python has scored its highest rating ever, 18.04%, in Tiobe’s index of programming language popularity for August 2024. Python became the first language to reach 18% mark since Java in November 2016 – InfoWorld and TIOBE.
Five First-Rate Linux Distros For Power Users
Details on five first-rate Linux distros for power users. For advanced users, these distributions are worth the extra bother – ZDnet.
This Week’s Python Streams
Python on Hardware is all about building a cooperative ecosphere which allows contributions to be valued and to grow knowledge. Below are the streams within the last week focusing on the community.
CircuitPython Deep Dive Stream
Last Friday, Scott streamed work on RP2350 from Raspberry Pi.
You can see the latest video and past videos on the Adafruit YouTube channel under the Deep Dive playlist – YouTube.
CircuitPython Parsec
John Park’s CircuitPython Parsec this week is on Nice Pin Names – Adafruit Blog and YouTube.
Catch all the episodes in the YouTube playlist.
CircuitPython Weekly Meeting
CircuitPython Weekly Meeting for August 5, 2024 (notes) on YouTube.
Project of the Week: The DEF CON 32 Badge
The official DEF CON 32 badge was released at the same time as the RP2350, as it features the RP2350 (upper center). The official firmware runs rePalm (Palm OS) by dimitry.gr but of course can run MicroPython or CircuitPython when the UF2 files are ready – X, Information Document and File Repository.
Popular Last Week
What was the most popular, most clicked link, in last week’s newsletter? Tulip Creative Computer.
New Notes from Adafruit Playground
Adafruit Playground is a new place for the community to post their projects and other making tips/tricks/techniques. Ad-free, it’s an easy way to publish your work in a safe space for free.
USB Host Gamepad Decoder – Adafruit Playground.
Hoffman Input Device using Neokey 1×4 for AAC Access – Adafruit Playground.
Home CAN Bus Network Using Telephone Wiring – Adafruit Playground.
News From Around the Web
Les Pounder hacks WiFi onto a Pico 2 via an Adafruit Airlift ESP32 board – YouTube via X.
This post shows a modern handheld AMD Ryzen PC editing MicroPython code on the go – X.
The DCNextGen badge was demonstrated on the last Adafruit Show and Tell. It is packed with hardware, running an RP2040 with 8MB of flash storage. The badge also has a 200×200 tri-color ePaper display, 2KB of EEPROM, PWM audio with mono amp, I2S audio output (via a header), NeoPixels, touch pads (each letter is a touchpad), diagnostics LED, USB-C, STEMMA-QT, and IR receiver and emitter – Discord.
The new Bus Pirate 5XL and 6 use the RP2350A and RP2350B with its upgraded RAM and newer ARM cores – X.
First steps with RISC-V MicroPython on the Raspberry Pi Pico 2. The code works – X.
Adafruit teases an HSTX to DVI (HDMI plug) adapter board for use with RP2350 boards with an HSTX connector – X and Video.
The Open Source Hardware Association works to spread awareness and knowledge of open source practices. OSHWA is in a pickle! In the US where the not for profit is registered there is a law stating that one third of all income must be from the public. While they have been extremely lucky to have received government grants, if they don’t have enough public contributions their status will be revoked. With a purchase of a tee/hoodie you’ll be helping maintain their status and any additional funds raised will go back into making cool things happen in the community – Custom Ink.
Aisler writes: “Thanks to the great package design by Raspberry Pi with the smaller thermal pad, one can lay out an RP2350 board on two layers with the simple design rule rating offered by our rapid and budget option.” – X.
The tiny Thumby Color keychain console gets a Raspberry Pi Pico 2 power boost. It comes with 128 x 128 color display and a rumble motor – Tom’s Hardware.
Embedded Python: MicroPython Toolkits – Hackaday.
How to power a Raspberry Pi 4 through USB C or GPIO pins? – Stackexchange.
Raspberry Pi drag racing vs all comers! Pi3, Pi4, Pi5, Nano, Beagle Bone Black, Apple M2, Threadripper 7995WX and more! – YouTube.
Geekworm X1011 review: four NVMe drive add-ons for the flagship Raspberry Pi 5 – Tom’s Hardware.
Open HAT-PCIe by Rex Tang takes a Raspberry Pi NVMe HAT and turns it into a PCIe card – X and GitHub.
New
The WIZnet EVB Pico 2 features the new RP2350 and WIZnet Ethernet Chip – X.
With the release of the RP2350, Adafruit has announced the Feather RP2350 and the Metro RP2350 – CircuitPython.org, Feather RP2350 and Metro RP2350.
Pimoroni has announced eight boards using the RP2350 – Pimoroni.
SparkFun Pro Micro RP2350 – YouTube.
New Boards Supported by CircuitPython
The number of supported microcontrollers and Single Board Computers (SBC) grows every week. This section outlines which boards have been included in CircuitPython or added to CircuitPython.org.
This week there were six new boards added:
Note: For non-Adafruit boards, please use the support forums of the board manufacturer for assistance, as Adafruit does not have the hardware to assist in troubleshooting.
Looking to add a new board to CircuitPython? It’s highly encouraged! Adafruit has four guides to help you do so:
New Learn Guides
Sound Reactive LED Top Hat from Erin St Blaine
Grill Thermometer Dashboard from John Park
Feather RP2040 DVI CircuitPython Day 2024 Countdown Clock from Liz Clark
Feather ESP32-S3 TFT CircuitPython Day 2024 Countdown Clock from Liz Clark
CircuitPython Libraries
The CircuitPython library numbers are continually increasing, while existing ones continue to be updated. Here we provide library numbers and updates!
To get the latest Adafruit libraries, download the Adafruit CircuitPython Library Bundle. To get the latest community contributed libraries, download the CircuitPython Community Bundle.
If you’d like to contribute to the CircuitPython project on the Python side of things, the libraries are a great place to start. Check out the CircuitPython.org Contributing page. If you’re interested in reviewing, check out Open Pull Requests. If you’d like to contribute code or documentation, check out Open Issues. We have a guide on contributing to CircuitPython with Git and GitHub, and you can find us in the #help-with-circuitpython and #circuitpython-dev channels on the Adafruit Discord.
You can check out this list of all the Adafruit CircuitPython libraries and drivers available.
The current number of CircuitPython libraries is 490!
New Libraries
Here’s this week’s new CircuitPython libraries:
Library PyPI Weekly Download Stats
Total Library Stats
- 166,667 PyPI downloads over 331 libraries
Top 10 Libraries by PyPI Downloads
- Adafruit CircuitPython Requests (adafruit-circuitpython-requests): 11,956
- Adafruit CircuitPython BusDevice (adafruit-circuitpython-busdevice): 11,091
- Adafruit CircuitPython ConnectionManager (adafruit-circuitpython-connectionmanager): 9,850
- Adafruit CircuitPython Register (adafruit-circuitpython-register): 2,528
- Adafruit CircuitPython ADS1x15 (adafruit-circuitpython-ads1x15): 2,133
- Adafruit CircuitPython MiniMQTT (adafruit-circuitpython-minimqtt): 1,642
- Adafruit CircuitPython Wiznet5k (adafruit-circuitpython-wiznet5k): 1,500
- Adafruit CircuitPython DHT (adafruit-circuitpython-dht): 1,363
- Adafruit CircuitPython ESP32SPI (adafruit-circuitpython-esp32spi): 1,290
- Adafruit CircuitPython Pixelbuf (adafruit-circuitpython-pixelbuf): 1,283
What’s the CircuitPython team up to this week?
What is the team up to this week? Let’s check in:
Dan
I was on vacation most of the week before last. I’m continuing on the MicroPython v1.22 merge. I’ve fixed most of the test failures. When it’s in good enough shape to merge, I’ll take the PR out of draft mode, have it reviewed and merged, and then immediately start on the v1.23 merge.
Melissa
Over the past couple of weeks, I have been working on adding new features to the CircuitPython Code Editor Beta Site including handling multiple file operations, improved stability, and UI improvements. Feel free to give the beta site a try out and let us know what you think.
Tim
I’ve continued moving a few more libraries to Ruff while reviewing other PRs. I implemented the Formatter class for Adafruit_Logging library and added support for using a formatted timestamp in the log output. There was a bug causing it to log extra empty lines which I also submitted a fix for. I’ve started adding a function to test for intersection between vectorio shapes, in the PR currently it’s been implemented for Circle and Rectangle, I am researching the geometry involved with an implementation for Polygon.
Scott
This week is RP2350 launch week! I’ve secretly been working on CircuitPython support off and on over the last few months. Most of what the RP2040 supports should just work thanks to the pico sdk. So, it’ll be easy to upgrade to the faster CPU and double the RAM. RGBMatrix, USB host and sleep are still disabled. I’m sure we’ll find more issues as hardware becomes available. Hopefully by the time you are reading this the pull request has been merged in. Ed: It was, see above.
Upcoming Events
The next MicroPython Meetup in Melbourne will be on August 28 – Meetup. You can see recordings of previous meetings on YouTube. The July 2024 Video.
Espressif DevCon24 will be held Sep 3-5, 13:00-18:00 CEST. Call for presentations now – Espressif.
Maker Faire Bay Area returns to Mare Island Naval Shipyard California on October 18-20, 2024 – Maker Faire.
Hackaday Superconference is an epic gathering of hardware hackers, makers, and tech enthusiasts happening November 1-3 in Pasadena, California – Hackaday and Eventbrite.
Send Your Events In
If you know of virtual events or upcoming events, please let us know via email to cpnews(at)adafruit(dot)com.
Latest Releases
CircuitPython’s stable release is 9.1.1 and its unstable release is 9.2.0-alpha2350. New to CircuitPython? Start with our Welcome to CircuitPython Guide.
20240730 is the latest Adafruit CircuitPython library bundle.
20240806 is the latest CircuitPython Community library bundle.
v1.23.0 is the latest MicroPython release. Documentation for it is here.
3.12.5 is the latest Python release. The latest pre-release version is 3.13.0rc1.
3,984 Stars Like CircuitPython? Star it on GitHub!
Call for Help – Translating CircuitPython is now easier than ever
One important feature of CircuitPython is translated control and error messages. With the help of fellow open source project Weblate, we’re making it even easier to add or improve translations.
Sign in with an existing account such as GitHub, Google or Facebook and start contributing through a simple web interface. No forks or pull requests needed! As always, if you run into trouble join us on Discord, we’re here to help.
38,175 Thanks
The Adafruit Discord community, where we do all our CircuitPython development in the open, reached over 38,175 humans – thank you! Adafruit believes Discord offers a unique way for Python on hardware folks to connect. Join today at https://adafru.it/discord.
ICYMI – In case you missed it
Python on hardware is the Adafruit Python video-newsletter-podcast! The news comes from the Python community, Discord, Adafruit communities and more and is broadcast on ASK an ENGINEER Wednesdays. The complete Python on Hardware weekly videocast playlist is here. The video podcast is on iTunes, YouTube, Instagram), and XML.
The weekly community chat on Adafruit Discord server CircuitPython channel – Audio / Podcast edition – Audio from the Discord chat space for CircuitPython, meetings are usually Mondays at 2pm ET, this is the audio version on iTunes, Pocket Casts, Spotify, and XML feed.
Contribute
The CircuitPython Weekly Newsletter is a CircuitPython community-run newsletter emailed every Monday. The complete archives are here. It highlights the latest CircuitPython related news from around the web including Python and MicroPython developments. To contribute, edit next week’s draft on GitHub and submit a pull request with the changes. You may also tag your information on Twitter with #CircuitPython.
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