The Raspberry Pi Foundation just introduced its Debug Probe—a small board that lets you quickly debug or troubleshoot the Pi Pico and other ARM microcontrollers. At just $12, the Raspberry Pi Debug Probe is an interesting product, though it’s obviously somewhat niche.

Most ARM-based microcontrollers are usually “bare metal,” meaning that they lack an operating system. This makes debugging a bit difficult; you can’t just plug the Pi Pico into a computer monitor to see what’s going wrong. Instead, you must interact with the microcontroller’s built-in SWD (Single Wire Debug) interface.

While the Pi Pico’s SWD interface is fairly easy to access (it’s tied to a few GPIO pins), you need a debug probe to act as an intermediary between the microcontroller and your PC. And that’s the purpose of Raspberry Pi’s new Debug Probe. Once it’s connected to your ARM-based microcontroller, it sends useable debug information to your PC over a Micro USB cable.

This product is obviously geared toward professionals and hardcore hobbyists. That said, it makes the Pi Pico a more accessible software coding platform. Other debug probes cost several hundred dollars, while the Pi Debug Board is just $12.

The Raspberry Pi Debug Board is available today at licensed retailers. It’s intended for the Pi Pico and other RP2040 devices, but it should work with other ARM Cortex M-series microcontrollers. Note that, with a bit of elbow grease, you can also use a Raspberry Pi Pico as a debug probe.

Raspberry Pi Debug Probe

Debug the Raspberry Pi Pico and other ARM-based microcontrollers using Raspberry Pi’s official Debug Probe.

Source: Raspberry Pi Foundation