You Can Now Connect a Camera to Raspberry Pi Zero

The Raspberry Pi Zero is just 2.5 inches long and a little over an inch wide, but apparently that isn't too small to cram in another port. The Raspberry Pi Foundation announced in a blog post today that thanks to "dumb luck," it managed to add a camera connector to the Zero.

To do so, they used the same fine-pitched port from the Compute Module development kit, originally intended to allow the Raspberry Pi to connect to a variety of form factors in industrial applications. Via an adapter cable, the port can attach to the bigger connector used on the Raspberry Pi camera module.

That module—sold separately—has a 5-megapixel fixed-focus camera that supports 1080p video recording as well as still image capture. It's handy for home security systems and wildlife cameras, among other uses.

The Raspberry Pi Zero made waves for its $5 price when the UK foundation launched it last fall as a little brother to the Raspberry Pi . It runs a Broadcom BCM2835 processor and a 1GHz ARM11 core that the company says is 40 percent faster than Raspberry Pi 1. It has 512MB of LPDDR2 SDRAM, as well as a micro-SD card slot, a mini-HDMI socket for 1080p60 video output, and Micro-USB sockets for data and power.

Demand has been so high that each batch of Pi Zeros has sold out immediately, according to the foundation. The intervals between production batches left it with the time to add the camera connector, which Raspberry Pi Founder Eben Upton called the most frequently demanded missing feature.

Recommended by Our Editors

$5 Raspberry Pi Zero Sells Lots, Gets Huge eBay Markups

If you've been waiting to have a Pi Zero with a camera connector and want to buy one online, you can (in theory) head to Adafruit, which is showing the updated Pi Zero for sale on its website. Problem is, they're sold out. So is Micro Center, the other US Raspberry Pi distributor, though it does indicate limited in-store availability of what appears to be the non-camera enabled previous version.