Image from Raspberry Pi

Raspberry Pi has today launched the Raspberry Pi Pico W (see the official announcement here).

This uses the same RP2040 chip as the regular Pico but has wi-fi built into it! This is going to get eaten up by the Internet of Things crowd and, at $6 (£6 ish), it is incredibly good value for money!

You can buy a Pico W from Pimoroni and of course from The Pi Hut and there are other resellers out there too.

Pimoroni have got ahead of the game (as usual) by developing several Pico-with-wireless boards and add-ons. My favourite is the Inventor 2040 W which has motor drivers, audio and breakouts (as well as wi-fi) onboard. Good job, folks! There are also other sensor/IoT based boards in the works and the e-ink boards are already available. Best place to go is the New Products page.

You can read a review of the Pico W by Les Pounder here and there’s a new issue of The MagPi out covering the launch. If you’re on Twitter, other coverage will come out over the day, I’m sure.

Opinion

£6? That’s ridiculous for an IoT platform with the kind of support and quality that Raspberry Pi puts out. The RP2040 is a great chip and the 2MB of onboard memory is just enough for most uses, although 4MB wouldn’t have gone amiss (I appreciate it wouldn’t have been £6 then, but I can wish!) Go and buy one if you need the wi-fi connectivity or a cheap Bluetooth device (when the software catches up). Well done, Raspberry Pi – this one is going to go like hotcakes!