While Raspberry Pi Zero has found many applications, the lack of wireless connectivity meant the use of dongles or a USB hub. Zero W is said to overcome this by integrating the Cypress CYW43438 wireless chip found in the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B. With this, the Pi Zero W supports IEEE802.11n wireless LAN and Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity.
Alongside a 1GHz single core CPU and 512Mbyte of RAM, the board comes with a Mini-HDMI port, a Micro-USB On-The-Go port, Micro-USB power and a HAT-compatible 40-pin header.
Eben Upton, chief executive of Raspberry Pi Trading, said: “We imagine you’ll find all sorts of uses for Zero W. It makes a better general purpose computer because you’re less likely to need a hub: if you’re using Bluetooth peripherals, you might well end up with nothing at all plugged into the USB port. And of course it’s a great platform for experimenting with IoT applications.”
