The Raspberry Pi Pico W is a slightly-upgraded version of last year’s $4 Raspberry Pi Pico. It’s not a full Linux-powered system like the Raspberry Pi 4 and 400, so you can’t use it as a computer — instead, it works as a microcontroller board for DIY electronics projects. Just like the original Pi Pico, it has a RP2040 microcontroller with two ARM Cortex-M0+ cores and 264kB of SRAM.
The main upgrade with the Pico W is the integrated 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi module, which is a handy addition for anyone trying to build their own smart home devices or other similar projects. To help you get started, the Pico SDK has been updated with wireless networking support.
Raspberry Pi also announced the Pico H and Pico WH, which are just the Pico and Pico W with pre-populated headers and a 3-pin debugging connector. The Pico H costs $5 and is available now, while the Pico WH will cost $7 when it arrives in August.
The original Pico board has been used for countless DIY projects, including an oscilloscope that sends data to a smartphone, a ‘Pico Phone”‘ that texts jokes to a given phone number, a humidity sensor with a built-in display, and an emulator for the BBC Micro computer. The new Pico W is pin-compatible with the first model, so it should work with any projects and guides designed for the first Pico.
Raspberry Pi was also quick to point out that the Pico series isn’t suffering from the same supply chain shortages that have made the Pi 4 and Pi 400 difficult to buy. The company said in a blog post, “We always believed that RP2040 [chipset] was a great fit for commercial and industrial applications, but the global semiconductor shortage has vastly accelerated adoption. With millions of units on hand today, and pipeline in place for tens of millions more, design engineers who have been let down by their current suppliers have a perfect excuse to experiment.”
The Raspberry Pi Pico W is available from stores like ThePiHut and PiShop starting today. Raspberry Pi will maintain a list of approved resellers on the Pi Pico site, but if you visit that page, make sure to select ‘Yes’ under the Wireless dropdown menu.
Source: Raspberry Pi
