The Raspberry Pi adds to the ultra-low-cost microcontroller family with the advent of three new Pico models. Perhaps DIYers will be most excited to see it is the Pico W, a replica of the original Pico except for the addition of 802.11 Wi-Fi connectivity, a feature that will greatly enhance the usefulness of this board. This significant addition adds $2 to the price, bringing the Pico W to just $6.
The component that brings wireless connectivity to the Pico is the Infineon CYW43439, With support for the older 802.11n protocol (Wi-Fi 4). Do a quick search and you will notice that the chip supports Bluetooth and Bluetooth Low-Energy (LE); the seaNot enabled on Pico W At launch, but may be added in the future.
The Pico H is priced at $5 between the original and the Pico W, which adds pre-filled headers and a 3-pin debugging connector to the original Pico. The Pico WH brings these features together — Wi-Fi, 3-pin debugging, and pre-filled heads — and costs $7.
With these three additions, the Raspberry Pi hopes to build on the momentum of the original Pico. Launched in early 2021, the Pico is based on an RP2040 microcontroller that has a pair of Arm Cortex-M0 + 144MHz CPU cores and 264KB of memory. It is a low-power, low-power board intended for single-purpose IoT devices, such as sensors, actuators, and other peripherals. Raspberry Pi says it has sold just under 2 million Pico tablets and that The RP2040 microcontroller is used across many third-party products and applications.
Eben Upton, founder of the company, wrote in Blog post. “With millions of units on hand today, and a pipeline in place for tens of millions more, design engineers who have been let down by their current suppliers have the perfect excuse to experiment.”
These three additions, notably the Pico W, add even more versatility to the more intuitive Raspberry Pi microcontroller. They are reasonable upgrades likely to sell in the millions to students, engineers, and repairmen. The early units sent to the creators were already converted into a garage door sensor (see video above), a notification system, and a Wi-Fi scanner.
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