The BPI-PicoW-S3, A New Player in Town

The BPI-Pico-S3 is an ESP32S3 development board that has been fully adapted to CircuitPython, and the TinyUF2 + CircuitPython firmware is installed by default.

No need to install any drivers in Windows 10, Windows 11, Ubuntu Desktop, or Mac OS operating system, it can be used by connecting to the PC out of the box, The system will recognize this device as a USB disk, edit the code.py file in it to control the peripherals of the development board.

It is recommended to use Mu Editor to get started with CircuitPython.

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Banana Pi BPI-Pico-S3 install CircuitPython and tinyuf2 firmware, with ESP32S3...

How to update CircuitPython firmware

This method is suitable for the BPI-PicoW-S3 board that already has tinyUF2 firmware. If the flash of the board is erased or the failure to enter the UF2 mode occurs, you need to refer to the method of burning TinyUF2 firmware below.

1. Go to the BPI-PicoW-S3 CircuitPython download page.

2. Click the DOWNLOAD UF2 NOW button to download the latest released .uf2 firmware.

3. Connect the development board to the computer via USB, and a disk named CIRCUITPY will appear on the file management page of this computer, which is the disk in CircuitPython mode. Double-click the Reset button on the development board to change it to a disk in UF2 mode. The following are the specific steps.

1. Quickly press the Reset button once.

2. Quickly press the Reset button again when the purple light is on.

3. The sign of a successful trigger is that the Colored light turns red after a moment to a long green light. If you don’t get this result, you can retry the first two steps.

4. The disk name in UF2 mode is UF2BOOT, copy the .uf2 firmware downloaded in step 1 to this disk, the colored lights will flash orange during the process, do not disconnect or do anything with the board during this process.

5. After the CircuitPython firmware update is complete, it will automatically reset, and a new CIRCUITPY disk will appear on the file management page of this computer. You can view the specific firmware version via the REPL.

How to Install tinyUF2 Firmware

Download tinyUF2 Firmware

1. Go to the BPI-PicoW-S3 CircuitPython download page.
2. Under the Install, Repair, or Update UF2 Bootloader section at the bottom of the page, and click the DOWNLOAD BOOTLOADER ZIP button at the bottom to download the zip file.
3. Unzip the zip file locally, the combined.bin file is the firmware we need.

Place the Board in Bootloader Mode

1. Connect the development board to the computer via USB.
2. Use any conductor (like metal pins or tweezers) to short the BOOT0 contact to put the EPS32S3 chip into bootloader mode.
3. Press the Reset button once.
4. Release the BOOT0 contact.

Flash the Firmware with Chrome Browser

Chromium based browser required, the kernel version must be higher than 89.

1. Open the ESP Web Flasher page.
2. Click the Connect button, a device tab will pop up, select the serial port where the board is located.

3. After a successful connection, click the Erase button to erase the flash content of the development board. This will erase all previous data on the board.

4. Click the Choose a file... button to select the previously downloaded combined.bin file.
5. Click the Program button to start flashing the firmware, and wait a few minutes to complete the process.
6. After completion, manually press the Reset button once, and a solid green light indicates a successful installation. If you did not get a green light, you can retry the first five steps, or try the next programming method.

Flash Firmware Locally with ESPTool

1. Install Python from their official website (Users who already have Python installed may skip to step 3)

   For Windows systems, the most convenient way to download the installation package...