Sfera Labs has begun shipping Iono Pi v3, a compact DIN-rail industrial PLC that supports the Raspberry Pi 5. For engineers who need the Pi 5’s higher processing performance in a ready-to-deploy solution with many analog and digital input/output lines, Iono Pi v3 is designed to close that gap directly.
Iono Pi v3 still supports both the Raspberry Pi 4B and Raspberry Pi 5 — in memory configurations from 1 GB to 16 GB — with the full connectivity suite intact: Gigabit Ethernet, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth/BLE, four USB ports and microSD. Any compatible OS and software stack runs unmodified: Linux, Node-RED, CODESYS, Python, or custom applications. Four power relay outputs (5 A at 250 V AC), six protected digital inputs (0÷40 V), and three open-collector outputs with integrated fault detection cover the I/O requirements of a wide range of process control and building automation tasks.
The most significant measurement upgrade in v3 is the replacement of the 12-bit ADC in v2.0 with a Microchip MCP3462 16-bit converter running at up to 153.6 ksps. Two analog voltage inputs (0÷30 V) and two dedicated analog current inputs (0÷20 mA) are all connected to the same high-resolution converter. For applications that require precise process measurement or fast signal acquisition alongside Linux-based control logic, this brings capabilities that previously required separate dedicated hardware into a single DIN-rail device.
Iono Pi v3 includes an NXP PCF2131 real-time clock with a temperature-compensated crystal oscillator (±3 ppm accuracy) that doubles as a hardware watchdog. If the Raspberry Pi OS becomes unresponsive, the PCF2131 performs a full power cycle — independently of any software running on the Raspberry Pi. A timed power control function enables programmed sleep/wake cycles for low-power remote installations.
The Microchip ATECC608 secure element provides hardware-based cryptographic key storage and other standard cryptographic functions — enabling device-level identity and authentication for IIoT deployments where software-only security is insufficient.
A driver for Raspberry Pi OS exposes all Iono Pi v3 functions — relay control, analog measurement, digital I/O, watchdog, and RTC — through the sysfs file system, enabling control from any programming language. CE, FCC, IC compliant. Documentation and code at github.com/sfera-labs/iono-pi-v3-kernel-module.
