Raspberry Pi 6 - What to Expect

Three years after the introduction of the Pi 5 let's consider the next addition to the highly successful Raspberry Pi family, namely the Raspberry Pi 6.

Here are some of the key features to expect.

More Power

The Raspberry Pi 6 will have a brand new processor. Strong rumours suggest it will be based on the ARM Cortex-A78 or A720 architecture.

We are therefore likely to benefit from a significant increase from the current 2.4 GHz clock speed to around 3.0 GHz.

This means the Pi 6 will become an even better candidate for a can-do-anything desktop replacement - especially when the Pi 600 breaks cover.

Integrated Neural Processing Unit

However, by far the biggest and most important feature is the likely incorporation of a native 12 TOPS Neural Processing Unit (NPU).

This not only removes the need for a HAT+ module, such as the $100 Raspberry Pi AI HAT+, but also delivers a faster interface, lower latency and improved power efficiency.

In fact, a processing capability of many TOPS (Trillions of Operations Per Second) would allow Pi 6 owners to run a huge range of local LLMs (Large Language Models), plus advanced computer vision applications.

Other Key Features

* Smaller (7nm or 5nm) chip fabricate design will facilitate cooler runtime operation despite the superior performance increases.

* Maximum RAM configuration is now likely to top out at 32GB, compared with the current 16GB.

* Memory storage performance could be significantly boosted, from around 100 MB/s to many thousands MB/s.

* Networking upgrades are pretty much guaranteed, probably to Wi-Fi 6E or even Wi-Fi 7, plus maybe a 2.5Gb Ethernet port.

* An enhanced USB Power Delivery would power a wider range of peripherals and add-ons.

* And retention of the 40-pin GPIO header ensures backward compatibility across applications and maker-projects based on the Pi 5 and Pi 4 boards.

When and How Much?

After initial 2026 launch optimism, it now looks likely 2027 or even 2028 is a realistic timeframe for a Pi 6 announcement - which is at least four years after the Pi 5 release.

Obviously all this extra capability will come at an increased cost. But the exact price is very difficult to predict, especially as (at the time of posting - Pi Day 2026) global RAM prices continue to escalate.

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Raspberry Pi AI HAT+ 2

Following on from its successful initial HAT-style AI add-on board for the Raspberry Pi 5 the foundation has release a second generation product, namely the $130 Raspberry Pi AI HAT+ 2.

This new, more powerful board can run a range of Generative AI models directly on the device, ensuring data privacy and security, while eliminating the need for subscriptions to expensive cloud-based AI services.

A new Hailo-10H neural network accelerator delivers 40 TOPS of inferencing performance with low latency. And with 8GB of dedicated on-board RAM it can handle more sophisticated language (LLM) and vision (VLM) tasks.

Other benefits include tight integration with the Pi Camera software stack (libcamera, rpicam-apps and Picamera2). In fact, you can train a model with custom image datasets and the Hailo Dataflow Compiler.

The initial models availability list - DeepSeek-R1-Distill, Llama3.2, Qwen2.5-Coder, Qwen2.5-Instruct and Qwen2 - will be supplimented by others during 2026.

Visit Hailo’s GitHub for examples, demos, frameworks and and GenAI-based applications, such as VLMs, voice assistants, and speech recognition.

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Raspberry Pi 500 Plus Launch

The Raspberry Pi organisation has announced the new Raspberry Pi 500+ as an alternative to the RPi 500.

Here's the key Raspberry Pi 500+ features compared with the 500 model:

• 16GB SDRAM (500 has 8GB)

• 256GB SSD (500 only has card slot)

• Mechanical keyboard with extra function keys

• Backlight keys with RGB light

• Screw-access case (500 is sealed unit)

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AI in Magazines

Here are some useful AI coding/maker articles.

MagPi magazine

Issue 152 of the official MagPi magazine has a number front page AI feature.
The articles include how to Train before Inference and how to use Tensors in Python. Plus there is a hands-on tutorial showing how to build AI Hat+ and Raspbery Pi AI Camera projects.

Issue 147 of the official MagPi magazine has a number of AI articles.
One article covers the release of the new Raspbery Pi AI Camera, explaining the hardware elements, interface connector and the benefits of its built-in processor.
Another article shows what can be done with the Raspberry Pi AI Kit.
Plus there's a diverse selection of AI projects, including people detectors, ANPR trackers, pose detectors, text generators, music generators and an intelligent pill dispenser.

Linux magazine

In September 2023 the Linux Magazine published an article entitled Artificial intelligence on the Raspberry Pi. This article covers how to use a camera-equiped Raspberry PI to detect objects using pre-trained models loaded via the TensorFlow Lite framework and the OpenCV library.

The December 2024 issue article Ghost Coder compares some of the best AI assisted coding technologies, including GitHub Copilot, CodeConvert, Refraction, Codeium, Figstack, Tabnine, JetBrains AI, Tabby and FauxPilot.

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Raspberry Pi AI Camera Projects

In a previous post Raspberry Pi AI Camera post I highlighted its ability to run on all Raspberry Pi boards due to its built-in processing chip and memory. All you need to do is simply connect the AI Camera via the CSI interface.

Now let's take a look at the kind of applications and projects this camera can do.

Models

Firstly, there are two built-in AI models, namely MobileNet SSD and PoseNet.
MobileNet SSD is applicable for real-time object detection applications, while PoseNet is trained for pose identification.

To start just run the rpicam-hello with your choice of model. The model will be transferred to the camera module over the CSI connection (a process handled by the on-board RP2040) and loaded into 8MB of on-device RAM. The model stays loaded and constantly proceses images in real-time.

However, there is more. For example Raspberrry Pi have their Github libcamera repository, with three Python code examples for image classification, object detection and segmentation.

These code examples work with a range of models including EfficientNET v2, MobileViT XS, ResNet18, SqueezeNet and YOLOv8n. YOLOv8 can run at the maximum 640×640 resolution with others are limited to lower resolutions.

Take a look at the full libcamera documentation to discover how to get started.

Projects

As for project ideas they are almost limitless.

Here are a few examples:
• Smart Doorbells
• Smart Room/Baby Monitors
• Gesture Controled Devices
• Smarter Robots
• Pet or Wildlife Observation

But, of course, the fun is in coming up with your own ideas - either by taking a different approach to an existing idea, or coming up with a brand new one.

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Raspberry Pi AI Camera

To take advantage of the AI wave in June 2024 the Raspberry Pi organisation launched its Raspberry Pi AI Kit, a powerful piece of hardware capable of performing 13 trillion operations per second. However, this Kit needs the powerful Raspberry Pi 5 board plus a seperate camera module.

Now the Raspberry Pi organisation has launched a $70 Raspberry Pi AI Camera which is compatibile with older Raspberry Pi boards - including the Pi Zero - via a simple camera ribbon cable.

The AI Camera is built around a Sony IMX500 image sensor with an integrated AI accelerator. This chip runs a wide variety of popular neural network models, with low power consumption and low latency, leaving the Raspberry Pi processor free to perform other tasks.

Sony's suite of AI tools use existing neural network models including TensorFlow and PyTorch frameworks to to run efficiently on the AI Camera. And new models are able to take advantage of the AI accelerator power.

AI Camera highlights include:
• 12 MP Sony IMX500 Intelligent Vision Sensor (7.857mm)
• powerful built-in neural network accelerator
• 2028×1520 at 30fps or 4056×3040 at 10fps
• 1.55 μm × 1.55 μm pixel size
• 78-degree field of view
• integrated RP2040 Al accelerator using the I2C protocol
• 25mm × 24mm × 11.9mm dimensions

To find out more read the official Getting Started instructions.

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Raspberry Pi Pico 2

The Raspberry Pi organisation has launched the new Pico 2 board offering a significant performance boost, while retaining compatibility with older Raspberry Pi Pico boards.

Highlights include:
• a higher core clock speed
• more powerful 150MHz Arm Cortex-M33 cores
• optional RISC‑V cores
• 520KB of on-chip SRAM
• double the memory (4MB vs 2MB)
• new Arm TrustZone for Cortex-M security features
• on-chip switch-mode power supply
• upgraded interfacing capabilities

You can program the Pico 2 using the popular Python and C/C++ languages making it a the ideal microcontroller board for enthusiasts and professional developers alike.

Interstingly the Pico 2 also has unique dual-core, dual-architecture capability allows users to choose between a pair of industry-standard Arm Cortex-M33 cores, plus a pair of open-hardware Hazard3 cores to experiment with the RISC‑V architecture.

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Raspberry Pi 5

The powerful new Raspberry Pi 5 is available to pre-order right now.

Although similar in looks to its predecessors there is an in-house designed RP1 I/O controller chip.

This silicon supports USB 3 for more total bandwidth and much faster transfer speeds. Plus the Camera and DSI display connectors are interchangeable, so you can have one of each, or two the same.

Of course, there is also a powerful new processor, a Broadcom BCM2712 quad-core Arm Cortex A76 processor running 2.4GHz. Which means it is 3 times faster than the previous generation. And it supports up to 8GB of RAM.

Other features include a dedicated power button and support for two 4K HDMI 60Hz displays.

Here's a quick summary of the key features:

• Broadcom BCM2712 2.4GHz quad-core 64-bit Arm Cortex-A76 CPU
• VideoCore VII GPU, supporting OpenGL ES 3.1, Vulkan 1.2
• Dual 4Kp60 HDMI® display output with HDR support
• 4Kp60 HEVC decoder
• LPDDR4X-4267 SDRAM (4GB and 8GB versions at launch)
• Dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi®
• Bluetooth 5.0 / Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE)
• microSD card slot, with support for high-speed SDR104 mode
• 2 × USB 3.0 ports, supporting simultaneous 5Gbps operation
• 2 × USB 2.0 ports
• Gigabit Ethernet, with PoE+ support (via separate PoE+ HAT)
• 2 × 4-lane MIPI camera/display transceivers
• PCIe 2.0 x1 interface for fast peripherals
• 5V/5A DC power via USB-C, with Power Delivery support
• Raspberry Pi standard 40-pin header
• Real-time clock (RTC), powered from external battery
• Power button

Find out more at the Raspberry Pi 5 webpage.

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Raspberry Pi 4 Heat Sink Cases

As I mentioned in the Raspbian 'Buster' post, the 4GB version of the Raspberry Pi 4 is a real desktop computer replacement contender, but can suffer from CPU overheating.

However, there are now a number of heatsink-integrated cases on the market to help with this issue.

One particularly elegant solution is the Flirc Raspberry Pi 4 case, where the heatsink is an integrated part of the aluminium case design (see image below).

The Pimoroni solution is a more slimline heatsink solution. Once again it's constructed from aluminium and it's available in a black, gold, gunmetal grey, red, purple, blue or green colour (see image below).

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'Hello World' Raspberry Pi magazine

Are you involved with digital computing education? Do you help out with your local coding club?

Then you might be interested in a Raspberry Pi Foundation magazine called Hello World.

Hello World is a free to download magazine aimed at the computing and digital maker educational community. Each issue is filled with interesting and innovative ideas for lessons and projects to energise your classroom or coding club meetings, plus practical teaching tips on curriculum-based activities, lesson formats, coding languages, software tools and maker kits.

To find out more and view the full list of issues visit helloworld.cc website, where you can also activate your magazine subscription.

And don't forget to check out the Raspberry Pi Foundation's other publications, such as its classic MagPi magazine.

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CircuitPython, Adafruit and MicroPython

CircuitPython is a variant of the python language specifically aimed at the popular range of maker-style board products from AdaFruit Industries.

Digging under the covers the CircuitPython language is actually a fork of the popular MicroPython language. Consequently when there's a MicroPython update the CircuitPython language is also updated to accommodate any new features and functionality.

However, MicroPython is designed to support a much wider range of boards from many different manufacturers. As a result coding in CircuitPython is going to be a little different in places, so using a MicroPython reference manual isn’t always going to work.

Also note that CircuitPython only has a single file module download to the target board. While his means it isn't as flexible as MicroPython, it does make it considerably simpler to implement and debug.

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LEGO® Boost and Python Coding

The LEGO® Boost kit is all about delivering a simplified route into robotics.

You can create models using standard LEGO® bricks. And there's an easy-to-get-started block-based coding app for iOS and Android.

The kit's Move Hub accepts a real-time stream of code instructions, sent via bluetooth, to interact with the built-in motors, LEDs and sensors.

However, it's also possible to interact with the Move Hub using Python, a far more flexible alternative block-based coding.

First you'll need a Python installation on your PC, Mac or Raspberry Pi 3B/3B+/3A+ or Zero W.

You'll also have to install some dependencies:

sudo apt-get install python3-pip
sudo pip3 install pexpect
sudo pip3 install pygatt


Then install the LEGO® Boost Python library module:

wget https://github.com/undera/pylgbst/archive/master.zip
unzip master.zip
cd pylgbst-master
sudo python3 setup.py install


To find out more on using Python with LEGO® Boost (and get to access to plenty of code samples) check out the series of articles by Mike Cook in the official Raspberry Pi magazine, starting at issue 80.

And read my More LEGO® Boost Python Coding post for additional inspiration.

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Pi Wars 2019

The recent Pi Wars 2019 was spaced-themed affair in honour of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo Moon landing.

New challenges included rough terrain (crafted from plaster, wood, and bandages (crafted from plaster, wood, and bandages), fetch-and-carry Spirit Of Curiosity task, the Canyons of Mars autonomous maze navigation, the Hubble Telescope vision course and the Apollo 13 Obstacle Course (with a tricky PiBorg travellator section).

Competitor entries included a Mars Rover look-alike and a robot that looked like Starbug from Red Dwarf. And PiBorg demonstrated off their upcoming three-wheeled RockyBorg robot.

Maybe these Space-themed challenges and robots will inspire you own inventions, either at home or at your next CoderDojo or Code Club meeting?

Incidentally, there a collection of Space-themed projects in the latest edition of the Hack Space magazine.

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Python Game Source Code Listings

In every edition of the Wireframe magazine the Toolkit section's Source Code article demonstrates how write game code in the Python coding language.

For example Wireframe issue 10 covers the classic arcade game Pang, which was ported to the ZX Spectrum, Amiga, and Commodore 64 home computers of the day.

Thanks to the popular Pygame Zero library module you can simulate the balloon spawning element of the game with an impressively short code listing.

And you can download the source code from GitHub: wfmag.cc/wfmag10.

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Learn Python 3 on the Raspberry Pi Tutorials

My popular Learn Python on the Raspberry Pi tutorial series is now Python 3 compatible.

I've updated all the code examples to run in Python 3, and tested them with version 3.5 and 3.6.

Where appropriate I make references to Python 2.7 differences, for example in the tkinter GUI tutorial series of posts.

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Thonny version 3 for Raspbian

In a previous blog posts I talked out the benefits of the Thonny Python IDE and some of the new Thonny features for coding in Python on the Raspberry Pi and MicroPython on the Micro:bit.

Now Thonny version 3 is out. It introduces Breakpoints, to help weed out coding bugs, and a code-analysing assistant and improve your coding skills.

Thonny version 3 is included in the latest Raspbian operating system for the Raspberry Pi family.

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Updated Mu Python/MicroPython Editor

Previously, in my micro:bit MicroPython Coding Tutorials I introduced a easy-to-use coding editor, with full micro:bit MicroPython support, called Mu.

Now there's an updated version of Mu available for download for the Raspberry Pi, plus devices running the Windows, macOS and Linux operating systems.

One of the most important additions to Mu is an extended set of coding modes including:
• Python 3 coding
• MicroPython micro:bit coding
• Pygame Zero game coding
• Adafruit Circuit board support

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Coding the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+

The recent Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ launch adds more processing power, graphical performance and networking capabilities to the Raspberry Pi family. Consequentlyy, it's an ideal platform for Linux-derived Raspbian Stretch operating system.

And, as both Python and Java are preinstalled on Raspbian Stretch, it's a cost effective way to dive into software programming.

You could begin your Python coding journey with my free in-depth Learn Python on the Raspberry Pi series of posts.

Or learn the basics of the Java programming language with tools like BlueJ (maybe using the BlueJ Learning Videos), or the Greenfoot IDE or Dr Java.

This coding knowledge can then be employed to customise the hackable Raspberry Pi Minecraft edition using Python code or with Java uamd BlueJ.

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Raspberry Pi in Easy Steps - Book Review

The ‘Easy Steps’ books are well known for their excellent layout, clear and concise text and easy-to-follow instructions. It’s a format that ensures this Raspberry Pi in Easy Steps book is a great choice for anyone beginning their Raspberry Pi journey.

Inside author Mike McGrath kicks off with a basic introduction to the Pi. You’ll become familiar with the board’s components, the startup and login process, the graphical desktop and the underlying file system. An overview of the Linux command line completes this section.

The rest of the book is devoted to writing code. As a gentle start it begins with the Scratch language, where you’ll snap-together various blocks to build event-based animations using its stage, sprites, costumes and sounds.

All the remaining sections focus on the far more flexible Python language. Topics include the Python command-line interpreter, data structures (lists, tuples, sets and dictionaries), loops, functions, modules and file I/O. Then it moves on to building simple games with the pygame module and creating tkinter GUI apps. Lastly, there’s a short introduction to interfacing with the Pi board's GPIO pins.

In summary this book is an excellent introduction to Raspberry Pi coding. Follow the steps all the way through and you’ll be in a position to tackle a wide range of Python coding projects. And remember, the Python language is also available for Windows, macOS and most other Linux platforms.

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Creative Projects with the Raspberry Pi - Book Review

The aim of the Creative Projects with the Raspberry Pi book by Kirsten Kearney and Will Freeman is to inspire readers to build electronic projects with the Raspberry Pi 3 and Zero W. In total there are 35 different projects to build, across topics such as robots, games, home automation, scientific experiments and art.

Beginners can start with the basic building projects, such as a classic LED switching circuit and a Raspberry Pi power button. These only need a breadboard and a few simple components. And the project code is from the publisher's book's webpages.

However, there is no getting away from the fact that the core of this book revolves around relatively sophisticated, and in a number of cases extremely involved, electronic Pi-powered contraptions.

In other words, it's aimed at serious hardware hackers, rather those who simply wanting to tinker around with Raspberry Pi electronics.

While one or two projects can be done in a few hours, many will take much longer to construct. In fact, for a few the timespan is measured in weeks. So you’ll need plenty of patience, a solid soldering technique plus an assortment of DIY skills.

And you’ll need deep pockets too. When you take into account all the additional components, such as an LCD screen, various add-on boards and experimental kits like the CamJam EduKit 3, the majority of projects cost considerably more than a Raspberry Pi 3. The most advanced projects can cost thousands of pounds.

In summary, it’s a book stuffed full of innovative and well documented ideas. And you can of course take these ideas and develop you own custom variations. But if you're just taking the first steps of a journey into Raspberry Pi hardware hacking, or your time and funds are limited, it probably isn’t the right book for you.

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