Silicon Labs Announces the Addition of CircuitPython Support to Its xG24 Microcontroller Boards
Extends support to SparkFun's Thing Plus Matter, too, thanks to its Silabs MGM240P heart.
Silicon Labs has announced official support for CircuitPython, Adafruit's educational fork of MicroPython, on its xG24-family development boards — including SparkFun's recently-released Thing Plus Matter.
"By bringing CircuitPython compatibility to our xG24 boards, Silabs empowers developers to accelerate their prototyping and development processes," says Silabs' Holley Wright of the launch. "CircuitPython, an open source variant of Python optimized for microcontrollers, provides an intuitive and beginner-friendly environment, allowing developers of all skill levels to quickly get up to speed."
While, theoretically, the compatibility extends to any device with an xG24-family chip at its heart, Silabs has confirmed full compatibility with two of its in-house board designs: the xG24 Explorer Kit and the xG24 Dev Kit. The company has also confirmed that the recently-launched SparkFun Thing Plus Matter, which is based on the Silabs MGM240P, is compatible — though as-yet without support for the Matter side of things.
CircuitPython on the xG24 boards includes, Silabs has confirmed, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) connectivity and full support for peripherals including analog to digital converters (ADCs), UART serial buses, SPI, I2C, hardware timers, and more.
"CircuitPython support for the xG24 boards opens up exciting opportunities for developers and makers to seamlessly integrate the power of CircuitPython with the advanced features of Silabs' hardware," Wright claims. "By enabling Bluetooth functionality and offering easy access to peripheral control, Silabs continues to empower developers to create innovative IoT applications with simplicity and flexibility. We are excited to witness the incredible projects and creations that will emerge as a result of this collaboration."
To get users started the company has published a selection of sample projects to a GitHub repository, under an unspecified open source license; the CircuitPython firmware for compatible boards is available from the CircuitPython website.