In the coming months, we will be releasing a minor revision of the BBC micro:bit that uses a different compass and accelerometer. If you’re a user of micro:bit and you create scripts in one of our supported online editors, and then copy (flash) them onto your micro:bit, you won’t need to change anything that you’re doing.
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Why are you making the change?
Unfortunately, the compass component used on the BBC micro:bit is no longer being manufactured.
One of the reasons that the compass is reaching ‘end of life’ is that many new designs are choosing combined magnetometer and accelerator chips, rather than standalone devices. Having reviewed all of the possible replacement compasses we could choose, it’s clear that the best way to make sure we don’t have to make another change again any time soon is to move to one of these combined devices too.
We’re telling you about this as early as we can so that we have as long as possible to minimise the impact for people using the micro:bit.
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