In early 2021, the Raspberry Pi Foundation released the Raspberry Pi Pico , a tiny development board designed from the ground up by the organization itself to continue its mission of spreading technology and programming knowledge across the globe. The Raspberry Pi Pico also became the foundation’s cheapest board, going on sale for just $4. How could it be otherwise, the Pico was a success. The Pi Foundation has listened to its community, and for that reason, we already have among us the new Raspberry Pi Pico W , a tiny version of the development board with Wi-Fi connectivity that can change everything.
Raspberry Pi Pico W. The new IoT revolution?
The Raspberry Pi Pico is not exactly the most powerful development board on the market, but it is one of the cheapest and most versatile you can find . The original Pico was custom built by the foundation, and every detail was taken care of in order to offer an attractive product at an extraordinarily low price . His goal was and still is for anyone to have the ability to create their own IoT devices.
The new Raspberry Pi Pico W maintains practically all the specifications of the model that came out last year. It maintains the RP2040 chip , only now the board has wireless connectivity provided by an Infineon CYW43439 chip . Thanks to this, this new product complies with the 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi 802.11n standard. This module also has Bluetooth connectivity, although for now, the Raspberry Pi Foundation says that they will keep it disabled until further notice.
With this improvement, the new development board is worth 50% more expensive, that is, about 6 dollars. According to Eben Upton, the organization’s CEO, wireless connectivity is a fairly significant added cost in electronic products. In fact, he commented in an interview with The Verge that the approval and the agreements that must be signed with the relevant organizations already cost a whopping half a million dollars.
The Pico W just makes things easier
Until now, owners of Raspberry Pi Pico boards had been able to implement wireless connectivity using third-party accessories, but that meant using the pins on the board itself, thus preventing them from being used for other purposes. In addition, they were considerably more expensive than the small increase of two dollars that this new Raspberry Pi has experienced. However, the original Raspberry Pi Pico model is not going away . Quite simply, this new model with 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi makes things easier for anyone who wants to experiment with these devices to create products for the “Internet of Things”.
For just 6 dollars, this new development board will allow you to create all kinds of home automation devices that will be able to be controlled wirelessly through a mobile phone, a computer or even another Raspberry Pi. Finally, the company has also announced that they will release the Pico H and Pico WH . These models will simply have the headers already welded on , and will cost a dollar more than the standard Pico and Pico W models.
