Raspberry Pi Roundup - 29th April 2016

Cameras!

Two new cameras for the Raspberry Pi have been released. These cameras, which are direct drop-in replacements for the old ones (i.e. they have the same ribbon cable connector) feature new Sony IMX219 sensors. They still have fixed-focus lenses, but this time they are capable of taking still pictures at 3280 x 2464 pixel resolution. They also support 1080p30, 720p60 and 640x480p90 video recording. The cameras are available in two flavours:

• Standard.
• NoIR – a “night-vision” camera which has no IR filter on the lens.

They’re available from The Pi Hut for £21.

This is great news for those who like the camera – a simple upgrade from the end-of-line original that you can ‘just use’.

The MagPi has just published issue 45 and there is a big feature on the cameras and what you can do with them!

Weight tracker

Jamie Bailey from Initial State (a brilliant IoT API website) has been in touch again. This time, he’s published a really fun tutorial in which you create a set of scales from a Wii Balance Board and hook it up to a Raspberry Pi 3 (or other Pi with a Bluetooth dongle). You then use the Initial State website to graph the results and get it to send you an SMS each time you take a reading. Take a look here.

Zero production

Good news from Raspberry Pi Trading – Raspberry Pi Zero production is soon to enter a new phase, bringing with it better availability… and something mysterious. Here’s what Eben Upton had to say on a recent Raspberry Pi Forum thread:

Raspberry PI Zero production is restarting in Wales next Monday after a hiatus to allow us to focus on Raspberry Pi 3 (a million units built and counting). We have placed 250ku of new orders, and are aiming to produce at least 50ku/month for the rest of this year. Distribution will continue to be via Pimoroni, Pi Hut, Adafruit and Micro Center for now.

He also added a mysterious hint of something new to be added to the Zero:

To thank you for your patience, we’ve taken advantage of the hiatus to add a (much requested) new feature. I’ll leave you all to guess what it is (it’s not WiFi).

We hope to have Zeros back in stock in the next few weeks!

Terrarium

A terrarium really is a beautiful thing. Tom Bennet has placed a temperature sensor inside his terrarium box and then hooked up a Raspberry Pi to it. The Pi controls an Energenie home automation switch to maintain the environment inside. Take a look at how he did it here.