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Welcome to the latest Python on Microcontrollers newsletter! I hope everyone had a good Pi Day last Friday. Spring Fever has hit the programming scene and this week is packed with news. There was a big kerfuffle over supposed ESP32 vulnerabilities (which are not). A number of happenings at Adafruit and the Teensy is moving to SparkFun. And TI releases a microcontroller so small you cannot sneeze or you’ll lose it. Finally, keep an eye out for the circuitpython.org website revision due any day. – Anne Barela, Editor
We’re on Discord, Twitter/X, BlueSky and for past newsletters – view them all here. If you’re reading this on the web, subscribe here. Here’s the news this week:
CircuitPython.Org to Get an Update
CircuitPython.org with be updated soon with a fresh new look. CircuitPython has come a long way since the original landing page for CircuitPython.org was created. The new design will focus on what is possible with CircuitPython. And there will be a new Made with CircuitPython badge that will show off the wide range of projects, all created with CircuitPython. Each time the page is loaded, it will show off different projects throughout the page.
The new design will do a better job of explaining CircuitPython to those who are new to the language. It also does a better job of organizing the most used aspects of the site, like the individual board pages. This new design is already complete and is under review. Expect to see this update very soon! – Adafruit Blog.
The Espressif ESP32: Clearing the Air
Last week, it was widely reported, via an initial report by Tarlogic, that there were undocumented features of the original ESP32 microcontroller that could be used maliciously. Further review by experts and Espressif clarified that the functions were vendor-specific commands (VSCs) in the HCI controller software implementation (commonly available in many HCI implementations) and could not be used remotely via the chip radios. – Espressif, the Espressif initial response and Hackaday.
Updates to the Adafruit_Blinka_Raspberry_Pi5_Piomatter Library
Jeff and Tim have been hard at work on the Adafruit_Blinka_Raspberry_Pi5_Piomatter library which allows driving HUB75 RGB LED Matrix panels from a Raspberry Pi 5. The Pi 5, with its new RP1 chip, uses different techniques than previous Pis to do high speed input/output.
Support has been added for writing data to as many as three HUB75 ribbon cables, up from the previous limit of one. This can increase the frame rate for larger panels made from multiple matrices. A pair of new examples and learn guide pages were published this week which show two different methods for mirroring X11 graphical applications to the RGB matrices. One uses a virtual X server instance and supports game controllers but not standard mouse and keyboard input. The other requires running the X11 display system and mirrors a portion of the display to the panels with support for keyboard and mouse input – GitHub and Adafruit Learning System.
Adafruit Launches the Metro RP2350 — and Adds a High-End Variant with 8MB of PSRAM
The Arduino UNO form factor Metro RP2350 board has finally hit the market, and is available with 16MB of QSPI flash and optionally 8MB of QSPI PSRAM – hackster.io.
The Adafruit team has been posting projects to the Adafruit Learning System which use the new Metro, featuring the lovely video available from the HSTX interface and USB Host input.
SparkFun To Manufacture Teensy
The PJRC Teensy line of processors is popular in the embedded community, with software support including MicroPython and CircuitPython. PJRC has announced that Teensy products, including Teensy 4.0, Teensy 4.1 and related accessories, will now be manufactured by SparkFun in Colorado instead of in-house. Support will remain with PJRC – PRJC.
A 10x Faster TypeScript
Microsoft has been working on a native port of the TypeScript compiler and tools, using the Go language. The native implementation will drastically improve editor startup, reduce most build times by 10x, and substantially reduce memory usage. By porting the current codebase, they expect to be able to preview a native implementation of tsc capable of command-line typechecking by mid-2025, with a feature-complete solution for project builds and a language service by the end of the year – Microsoft Dev Blogs, YouTube and TechSpot.
Texas Instruments Releases the World’s Smallest Microcontroller
The new MSPM0C1104 is being touted by TI as the world’s smallest microcontroller at 1.3776 mm², featuring an Arm Cortex-M0+ – TI and the Product Page. Via X.
A Battery-Powered High-Speed RFID Reader
A low cost, battery-powered, high-speed RFID reader, controlled by a Raspberry PI 2W and Python, for off-grid use – GitHub. Via the Adafruit Forums.
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, Tim streamed work on Fruit Jam Game Jam: a 2 player Memory Game with 2 USB mice.
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 ANSI text formatting – Adafruit Blog and YouTube.
Catch all the episodes in the YouTube playlist.
The CircuitPython Show
In the latest episode, Tod Kurt and Jan Goolsbey join the show and share their experience in writing drivers and libraries for the CircuitPython Community bundle – The CircuitPython Show.
CircuitPython Weekly Meeting
CircuitPython Weekly Meeting for March 10, 2025 (notes) on YouTube.
Project of the Week: The Chicken Nugget Piano
Setting up touch sensors with a Raspberry Pi Pico is easier than you’d think. In this project, Kevin McAleer uses touch sensors to make a chicken nugget piano with the Pico, programmed in CircuitPython – Kev’s Robots.
Popular Last Week
What was the most popular, most clicked link, in last week’s newsletter? An Introduction to Zephyr Part 1: Getting Started – Installation and Blink.
And now this week you can catch An Introduction to Zephyr Part 2: CMake Tutorial – YouTube.
Did you know you can read past issues of this newsletter in the Adafruit Daily Archive? Check it out.
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.
Monitor Indoor Air Quality with Blues, IFTTT, Adafruit IO and a Hue LED Strip – Adafruit Playground.
News From Around the Web
Exploring WiFi 7 (at 2 Gbps) on a Raspberry Pi 5 – Jeff Geerling.
Creating a synth in Python with less than 100 lines of code – Syntopia, Reddit and GitHub. Via the Adafruit Blog.
Turn on LEDs from an App! Bluetooth control with a Circuit Playground BlueFruit (CircuitPython School) – YouTube.
Linux 1.0 was released 31 years ago. While not the first release, it was the first major milestone offering – Wikipedia. Via X.
An animatronic eye mechanism with 3D printing, Raspberry Pi Pico and MicroPython – Instructables.
Raspberry Pi wins the 2024 Europe TSMC Trophy for embedded computing innovation – Raspberry Pi News.
Open Source Hardware certifications for February 2025 – Makezine.
A W5100S-EVB-Pico2 LED project with Adafruit and CircuitPython – hackster.io and YouTube.
How to make a simple drawing robot: code Arduino in Python – YouTube.
Making a clock in CircuitPython with GIF images of Nixie tubes – YouTube. Via X.
A Stacker Arcade game, made in MicroPython with a Raspberry Pi Pico and MAX7219 LED displays – YouTube.
A wireless GNSS RTK rover and base set with Raspberry Pi and Python which can achieve real-time GNSS accuracy to the centimeter level – Instructables.
Python 3.14.0 alpha 6 is out. The release is the sixth of seven planned alpha releases – Python Insider Blog.
Keyboard Builders’ Digest #188 – kbd.news.
The team responsible for the PyPI software repository has announced a move towards some payments for services to enable the developers to devote enough resources to meet user demands – I Programmeer.
Getting started with Python’s asyncio library – KDnuggets.
A Bash scripting basics chart – X.
New
The Clockwork PicoCalc is a flexible, programmable platform in a calculator form factor. It uses a Raspberry Pi Pico as the processing brains and can do emulation, run BASIC and LISP and more – Clockwork and the Adafruit Blog.
Coming Soon
The SparkFun Experiential Robotics Platform (XRP) kit is moving out of beta and is available for preorder. The robot takes a Raspberry Pi Pico 2 RP2350-based board and is programmable in Blockly and MicroPython – SparkFun and experientialrobotics.org.
The Sipeed NanoCluster is being billed as the most affordable small clustered single board computer solution. “A Compact & Affordable Cluster for Homelab Beginners” – X.
CH57x is a RISC-V 32-bit SoC with 2.4GHz wireless and USB 2.0 (Host & Device). It’s an upgrade from the CH32V003, with more features at the same low price, about 10 cents – X and Datasheet.
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 no 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
The Adafruit Learning System has over 3,000 free guides for learning skills and building projects including using Python.
Flappy Nyan Cat Game on Metro RP2350 from Tim C
Updated Learn Guides
RGB Matrix Panels With Raspberry Pi 5
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 509!
New Libraries
Here’s this week’s new CircuitPython libraries:
Updated Libraries
Here’s this week’s updated CircuitPython libraries:
What’s the CircuitPython team up to this week?
What is the team up to this week? Let’s check in:
Tim
I have been working on testing new features of the PioMatter library and wrote guide pages covering two new examples for it. I also wrapped up the guide for a flappy bird inspired game with Nyan Cat last week, and am working on another for a snake game now. Both run on the Metro RP2350 and output to DVI with the HSTX connector. I’ve also started working on mouse support with a visible cursor for CircuitPython programs. A basic example is now checked into the tests folder in the core repo.
Jeff
I continued with some more enhancements for piomatter which further improved frame rate by eliminating an unintended long wait after driving each row of LEDs. I also resolved a problem Tim encountered where some rows of LEDs would be brighter than they should have been.
Scott
Well, I was planning on being out this week on vacation but got a stomach bug two days before we were supposed to leave. So, we’ve postponed our travel for the moment. I’ve polished up support for a second SAVES partition on the Fruit Jam. I’m also looking into automounting SD cards and making them available (read-only) over USB as well.
Liz
This week I worked on a guide for the Adafruit PCM510x I2S DACs. These I2S DACs have a line-out 1/8” jack and don’t require a separate driver to configure. There is example code in the guide for Arduino and CircuitPython. I think they’ll make a great option for CircuitPython synthio projects.
Upcoming Events
The next MicroPython Meetup in Melbourne will be on March 26th – Meetup. You can see recordings of previous meetings on YouTube.
The community is coming back to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for PyCon US 2025 May 14 – May 22, 2025 – us.pycon.org.
KiCad conferences (KiCon) to be held this year include 28 – 30 May 2025 in San Diego, California, 19 – 20 Sept 2024 in Bochum, Germany, and to be determined in Asia – KiCad.
Open Hardware Summit 2025 is being held May 30 @ 10am – May 31 @ 6pm GMT+1 in Edinburgh, Scotland – 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 9.2.4. New to CircuitPython? Start with our Welcome to CircuitPython Guide.
20250314 is the latest Adafruit CircuitPython library bundle.
20250314 is the latest CircuitPython Community library bundle.
v1.24.1 is the latest MicroPython release. Documentation for it is here.
3.13.2 is the latest Python release. The latest pre-release version is 3.14.0a6.
4,223 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.
38,849 Thanks
The Adafruit Discord community, where we do all our CircuitPython development in the open, reached over 38,849 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.
Join the Adafruit Discord or post to the forum if you have questions.
