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Ten dollars can buy you a lot of computer – now it even comes with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Let that sink in for a moment. For such a low amount of money we can add the Internet of Things (IoT) to our projects and embed a Raspberry Pi into even the smallest of projects. When the Raspberry Pi first burst onto the scene in 2012, a development board used to prototype projects would cost around $150. But the Raspberry Pi disrupted the market and reduced that price to $35, and this price has remained synonymous with the Pi. The Model A reduced the price further, but it wasn’t until the Pi Zero in late 2015 that we saw another disruption to the market. $5 for a computer is ludicrous. We routinely pay that for a coffee. Yet for this $5 price there was something missing, and that was wireless connectivity. We could use a USB dongle, but then we had to use a hub, and then the hub required external power, so we then had a $5 computer with $15 of accessories just to enable us to use our Wi-Fi, keyboard and mouse. So while the Pi Zero was revolutionary for the price, it did have caveats.
For $10 we can buy the Pi Zero W, which offers built-in Wi-FI and Bluetooth 4.1. But why is this important? Well, now I don’t need a dongle for my Wi-Fi, and I can use my Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, so now that solitary micro USB OTG port can be used with other devices. In fact the Pi Zero W wireless connectivity is so good that I just SSH into the Pi Zero W and run it as a headless device. And all of this for just $10. What a bargain.