CircuitPython 6.0.0 Stable and 6.1.0 beta 1 Released
CircuitPython is a programming language designed to simplify experimenting and learning to code on low-cost microcontroller boards. With CircuitPython, there are no upfront desktop downloads needed. Once you get your board set up, open any text editor, and start editing code. It’s that simple.
Downloads are available from circuitpython.org. The site makes it easy to select the correct file and language for your board. The downloads page is here. Downloads are no longer available from the GitHub release pages because of the large number of files for each release. (If you see the unstable release 6.0.0-rc.2 when you browse circuitpython.org, that release is older).
CircuitPython 6.0.0
CircuitPython 6.0.0, the latest major revision of CircuitPython, is now the new stable release.
Major new features and improvements since 5.x
- New port to ESP32-S2 chip.
- RGBMatrix display support.
- countio module to count pulses.
- watchdog controls hardware watchdog timer. Only on certain ports.
- vectorio provides native displayio shapes.
- canio provides support for CAN bus operations.
- _bleio adds support for HCI-based BLE co-processors, such as AirLift boards.
- aesio provides support for AES computations.
- async/await made available by default in many builds; support improved.
- Network modules are revamped, adding wifi, socketpool, ssl, and other modules. Disabled socket, wiznet5k and network modules. They will be removed in 7.x in favor of networking * libraries.
- Updated stage and pew libraries.
- _pixelbuf improvements.
- Improved USB serial detection.
- json can now read from stream objects.
- pulseio.PWMOut is split out into pwmio.PWMOut. It is still available in pulseio, but that is deprecated and will be removed in 7.x.
- Added memorymonitor for memory debugging. It is not enabled by default.
- Reduced power consumption (light sleep) during time.sleep() when possible.
CircuitPython 6.1.0 Beta 1
This is the second beta release of 6.1.0. (This first was broken.) It includes many changes that were done while 6.0.0 release candidates were in pre-release. Please use 6.0.x if you need a stable version of CircuitPython on all ports except ESP32-S2. Please use this release or newer for the ESP32-S2.
For more information: 6.0.0 Release and CircuitPython 6.1.0 Beta 1.
