Work with IoT devices on a standard computer using CircuitPython and Blinka #Blinka #CircuitPython

The MCP2221 and FTD2302 are breakout boards that have a USB on one side and a series of structured and unstructured I/O pins on the other. The breakout boards have various GPIO, I2C other pins on them that you attach sensors, LEDs, or other components.  This lets you indirectly attach GPIO inputs and outputs to a regular computer.

Adafruit’s CircuitPython Blinka library emulates the CircuitPython IoT board interface that is the root of many of the CircuitPython distributions.  That interface sits between standard Python and computer-attached I/O devices.  It was originally designed to support the I/O pins of the Linux-based Raspberry Pi. In our case, it sits between standard Python and the I/O devices that exist on the other sides of the MCP2221 and FTD2302 breakout boards.

  1. You can run your control code with the comfort of all your desktop tools and computing power.  Python has restrictions when running directly on Microcontrollers like the ESP32, PICO, or SAMD series of processors.
  2. You can run much of the same code on your development environment as you do on an IoT device as part of a faster edit/test/code cycle.

Check out Joe Freeman’s work via their blog.


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