Listen to the PiCowbell ringing to alert you that the Adafruit PiCowbell Camera Breakout with 160-Degree Lens is now available.

This OV5640 camera features a high-quality 5 Megapixel sensor element and a 160-degree wide angle lens, along with all necessary support circuitry for capturing images with your Pico or Pico W. It allows for raw RGB image capture for analysis or JPEG encoding for saving to an SD card or uploading to adafruit.io.

The RP2040 chip offers a rapid PIO interface peripheral and sufficient memory for seamless connection to 'DVP' (8-bit parallel digital) cameras. These camera sensors have 8 pins for image data, along with Pixel Clock, H Sync and V Sync signals, and an I2C configuration interface with a Reset and power Down pin. This results in a significant usage of GPIO, although there are still 6 available even with the addition of an SD card and shutter button.

Camera PiCowbell Features:

• Interface for OV5640 Camera module
  VSync: GPIO 0
  Power Down: GPIO 1
  HSync: GPIO 2
  Pixel Clock: GPIO 3
  SDA/SCL: GPIO 4 and GPIO 5
  8-bit Digital: GPIO6 through GPIO 13
  Reset: GPIO 14
  VMotor connected to 3.3V for auto-focus modules
• Micro SD Card:
  SPI on GPIO 16, GPIO 18 and GPIO 19
  Chip select on GPIO 17
  Optional SD Detect on GPIO 15
• Shutter button on GPIO 22
• Reset button
• 16 MHz 'XClock' generated by onboard oscillator
• Stemma QT port for I2C on GPIO 4 / 5

This module does not have auto-focus capability, it is a fixed 'infinite' focus module.

Each order comes with an assembled PCB, camera sensor, and two pieces of 20-pin pin header. You will need to solder in the header yourself, but it's a quick task.

Since this board has the camera pointing 'up', it's best to use our . Or you can 'stack' the camera 'bell on top, best when you don't need easy access to the BOOT loading button.

Or, for a compact package, you can...

1.  if you want to be able to plug into a breadboard or other accessory with sockets. Solder these onto the Pico so that the camera is on top.
2. if you want to plug directly in and have a nice solid connection that doesn't have any poking-out-bits. Ditto, solder these into the Pico and plug the camera on top.