Did you really think the Raspberry Pi would stop getting better? At this point, we sound like a broken record, extolling on the new Pi’s myriad improvements like we’re surprised that the folks at the Raspberry Pi Foundation are continuously making their flagship board better. Still, we’ll say it again – the Raspberry Pi team have outdone themselves. The Raspberry Pi 3 Model B is out and it is AMAZING.
Note: This is NOT the new Pi 3 Model B+. This is the Pi 3 Model B. If you are trying to buy the trendy new Pi 3 Model B+ click here!
There are two giant upgrades in the Pi 3. The first is a next generation Quad Core Broadcom BCM2837 64-bit ARMv8 processor, making the processor speed increase from 900 MHz on the Pi 2 to up to 1.2GHz on the Pi 3.
The second giant upgrade (and this is the one we’re personally most excited about) is the addition of a BCM43438 WiFi chip BUILT-IN to your Raspberry Pi. No more pesky WiFi adapters – this Pi is WiFi ready. There’s also Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) on board making the Pi an excellent IoT solution (BLE support is still in the works, software-wise)
Lastly, there’s an upgraded switched power source that goes up to 2.5 Amps instead of just 2 Amps – allowing your Pi to power even more powerful devices over USB ports.
Note: Our 5V 2.4 A power supply works great with the Pi 3 Model B and provides plenty of power to the chip, Ethernet, and any USB add-ons you plug in.
The best part about all this is that the Pi 3 keeps the same shape, connectors, and mounting holes as the Pi 2. The only difference is a slight change in where the LEDs are. 99% of cases and accessories will still be fully compatible with the Pi 3, Pi 2, and Pi B + – though if you have a case with a metal top there might be some WiFi chip difficulties.
Please note: Some boards are made in the UK, some in China. WE DO NOT KNOW IN ADVANCE WHICH ONES YOU MAY RECEIVE!
Please note: Even though the chip is a 64-bit ARMv8, Raspbian is currently only available in 32-bit ARMv7 compatible mode and so the OS may (confusingly) report it is an 32-bit ARMv7.
Product Dimensions: 86.9mm x 58.5mm x 19.1mm / 3.4″ x 2.3″ x 0.8″
Product Weight: 41.2g / 1.5oz
This camera module can be a pretty neat project addition. It was designed to be used in security systems and does two main things – it outputs NTSC video and can take snapshots of that video (in color) and transmit them over the TTL serial link. You can snap pictures at 640×480, 320×240 or 160×120 and they’re pre-compressed JPEG images which makes them nice and small and easy to store on an SD card. Perfect for a data-logging, security, or photography project.
One nice thing about this particular camera is all the ‘extras’ that come with it. For example it has manually adjustable focus, auto-white-balance, auto-brightness and auto-contrast taken care of for you as well as motion detection built in! That means you can have it alert your project when something moved in the frame.
We also carry an enclosed weather-proof version
Using the module is pretty easy and only requires two digital pins (or a TTL serial port) – by default it transmits at 38400 baud. Of course we wouldn’t just leave you with a datasheet and a ‘good luck’, we even spent a lot of time researching the module and DSP to make really nice libraries for both Arduino & CircuitPython, with example code that shows how to change the image size and compression quality, detect motion, control the video output stream, etc. That and more is available in our very detailed tutorial that will help get the most use out of your camera.
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