Raspberry Pi introduced a successor to last year’s Pico, a $ 4 microcontroller based on the RP2040 chip, which the company designed itself. The new model is called Pico W. It’s basically the same hardware, but adds, as the name suggests, 802.11n Wi-Fi radio, which makes it useful for assembling IoT projects and the like. It is also more expensive than the standard Pico, costing $ 6.
The 50 percent price jump is not insignificant (especially if you plan to buy a ton of them), but it is understandable why the W version costs much more than the original. Raspberry Pi CEO Eben Upton told The Verge’s Nilay Patel that adding radios to the products was very expensive. “Radio compliance for the modern Raspberry Pi alone is the best part of half a million dollars,” he said. A $ 4 pico won’t go away either. If price is a big factor and you can do without network connectivity, you can still get the cheaper model.
The company says it has added a wireless connection to the Pico using an Infineon CYW43439 chip. Interestingly, this chip also supports Bluetooth, but the Raspberry Pi says it is not currently activated. (Although this suggests that he is at least considering activating it in the future.)
Although there are accessories available to connect your standard Pico to a network, they were significantly more expensive and bulkier than the built-in Wi-Fi in the microcontroller itself – plus it used up valuable pins that could be attached to other fun accessories. . The Pico W is only available with a built-in and you can even use it as an added replacement for a standard Pico-based project if you wish.
The 2.4GHz 802.11n connectivity of the Pico W seems very old-fashioned in the days of Wi-Fi 6E, but it is worth noting that the Pico W was not made to be a desktop computer that could surf the Internet – it was designed to control other electronics or hardware devices. However, it can now do this while sending information back and forth over a network. As an example, a simple Pico can allow you to control an array of LEDs with a switch or button. You can still build it with the Pico W, but you’ll also be able to control the lighting from your laptop.
Pico H comes with built-in pin connectors. Image: Raspberry Pi
Raspberry Pi also announced two other Pico products: Pico H and Pico WH. They are the same as the Pico and Pico W, respectively, but cost a dollar more and come with pre-attached pins and a debug connector, while the base versions have plain pads similar to pads. In general, you pay to make it easier to attach things, which will be worthwhile for some people, but not for others. (Personally, I can buy the regular version just to apologize for getting into more soldering practices.) H is available today, while WH will be available in August.
In its press release, Raspberry Pi says that people who want to experiment with hardware have flocked to Pico because the lack of semiconductors makes it difficult to find chips. Although the company promises plans to make “tens of millions more” Picos, it has also been hit: anyone who has recently tried to buy its more sophisticated computers, such as the Raspberry Pi 4, knows that finding it in stock can to be difficult. However, Pico, Pico W and Pico H are currently available on several sites, such as The Pi Hut and Pimoroni. Adafruit and Cytron have pages for Pico W and say they will be available to order soon.
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