Today sees the Pico getting a highly requested feature – Wi-Fi.
And the price tag is still tiny, with the new Raspberry Pi Pico W coming in at only $6.
Not much has changed with the Pico W if you compare it to the Pico.
The RP2040 microcontroller is unchanged, and still features a 133MHz dual-core Arm Cortex-M0+ chip, 264KB of SRAM, and 2MB of QSPI flash storage.
And this all fits onto a board measuring 21mm x 51mm. This means that if you have projects that use the Pico, but could benefit from Wi-Fi, the Pico W is a drop-in replacement.
But the eagle-eyed might notice a metallic square.
This is the home for the Infineon CYW43439 chip that supports 2.4GHz 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi.
That chip also supports Bluetooth 5.2, but at launch only Wi-Fi is supported.
The real question is whether Wi-Fi is worth the $2. The jump from $4 to $6 is quite a jump, but if you need wireless, it’s worth it for the on-board solution.
Also new is a Pico with pre-soldered header pins, called the Pico H for $5. Coming in August is a Pico WH, a Wi-Fi version with header pins, which will set you back $7.
The Raspberry Pi Pico W is available immediately.
