RASPBERRY PI ZERO W V1.1

That’s right, one of our favorite type of upgrades has reached the Raspberry Pi Zero board. Built-in WiFi is made possible with the BCM43143 WiFi chip addition. Sound familiar? A similar chip was also added to the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B. And like the Pi 3, the Pi Zero W also has Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) onboard.

We love this type of upgrade because we can ditch irritating communication peripherals like an ethernet cable or dongle. Best yet, it’s nearly identical in form factor, connections, and mounting holes as the Pi Zero v1.3 so you can use almost all of the same accessories-just without the WiFi ones!

It boasts a micro SD card slot, mini HDMI port, two micro USB ports (one for power, one for USB), 512MB of RAM, and a single-core 1 GHz processor chip. All these features are packed into the slimmest form factor in the Raspberry Pi catalog.

Pi Zero W has all the functionality of the original Pi Zero, but comes with added connectivity, consisting of:

• 802.11 b/g/n wireless LAN

• Bluetooth 4.1

• Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE)

Like the Pi Zero, it also has:

• 1GHz, single-core CPU

• 512MB RAM

• Mini HDMI and USB On-The-Go ports

• Micro USB power

• HAT-compatible 40-pin header

• Composite video and reset headers

• CSI camera connector