The Raspberry Pi Pico 2W is a new Raspberry Pi microcontroller board and adds wireless capabilities for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth standards as a major innovation. Its price is small: 7 dollars.

Raspberry Pi is well-known for its Linux-based single board computers (SBCs), exemplified by the best-selling computer on the market, the Raspberry Pi 5, but it also makes programmable microcontrollers that fall under its “Pico” line. . The second generation Pico 2 already offered significant improvements over the original Pico with a higher clock speed (150 MHz), twice the integrated SRAM (520 KB) and flash (4 MB) and more powerful ARMs.

Pico 2 was a success from the first moment and at just $5, it sold “like hotcakes,” but some users lacked wireless options.

Raspberry Pi Pico 2 W, wireless version

A British non-profit foundation listened to these requests and within a few months developed a variant that adds compatibility with the main standards. On one side Bluetooth 5.2 (minimum consumption version) and on the other Wi-Fi 4 (802.11n).

The version of Wi-Fi included in the Pico 2 is not the most advanced and has been outdone by several generations, currently Wi-Fi 7 is leading the industry. The version only supports the 2.4 GHz wireless band, but it must be said that although it is the slowest, It is the best choice for smart home projects because the signal is able to penetrate walls and other obstacles much deeper than the 5 or 6 GHz bands.

The new board is equipped with a proven RP2350 microcontroller that can directly execute custom code. Developers or hobbyists can write code in popular programming languages ​​such as C, C++, or MicroPython, a version of Python designed to run on microcontrollers and widely used in Pico.

Otherwise Raspberry Pi Pico 2 supports dual architecture and you can choose to run ARM Cortex-M33 cores or two RISC-V Hazard 3 open hardware cores, choosing one at startup or while developing code to run on the microcontroller.

The new wireless-enabled board is fully compatible with existing Pico hardware and software. It costs just $7 and is sold at regular retailers. Announcements and other information | Raspberry Pi