Raspberry Pi Zero bakes in a camera connector

The cheapest and most compact version of the Raspberry Pi has just seen a rather nifty little addition in the form of a camera connector.

As announced on the Pi blog, the new connector for the Pi Zero (apparently the same one used on the Compute Module Development Kit) fits snugly onto the right-hand side of the board, as you can see in the image above.

And the good news is the price of the Pi Zero remains the same, so it'll still run you to just £4 ($5). To hook up your camera, you'll also need a custom 6-inch adapter cable, which goes under the name of the Camera Cable: Raspberry Pi Zero Edition, and will cost a further £4 (yes, the same price as the mini-computer itself, although that's as much a reflection of how cheap the hardware is, rather than how expensive the cable is).

Size matters

Note that the camera connector is smaller on the Pi Zero, unsurprisingly, so you won't be able to use an existing cable from your normal-sized Raspberry Pi.

If you missed it, a new camera board was also launched for the Raspberry Pi last month, which is an eight megapixel affair (compared to the previous camera's five megapixels), and it comes in a normal (visible light) version and an infrared flavor with both being pitched at £19 ($25).

So you can now hook up this new snapper featuring a Sony IMX219 sensor to the Pi Zero.

The Pi Foundation says it has shipped out 30,000 more units of the Zero, but we doubt that stock will last that long, as given the minimal outlay, these have proven to be extremely popular. The blog post stated: "We'll be making thousands more each day until demand is met."

• We help you find the best Raspberry Pi for your needs