Seeed Studio has launched another Raspberry Pi RP2040 WiFi board with the compact Wio RP2040 mini development board that provides a cheaper and more compact alternative to ESP32 based Pico Wireless carrier board and Arduino Nano RP2040 Connect, albeit at the cost of providing fewer I/O pins, and lacking Bluetooth LE.
Wio RP2040 mini dev board specifications:
- MCU – Raspberry Pi RP2040 dual-core Cortex M0+ microcontroller up to 133 MHz with 264 kB of embedded SRAM
- Storage – 2MB QSPI Flash Memory
- WiFi – 2.4 GHz 802.11b/g/n WiFi 4 supporting AP & station modes
- USB – USB 1.1 Type-C host/device port for programming
- Expansion – 2x 14-pin headers with 20x multifunctional GPIO pins supporting PIO and PWM, 2x UART, 4x ADC, 2x SPI, 2x I2C.
- Misc – Boot & Reset(RUN) buttons, Power and user (GP13) LEDs
- Power Supply
- 5V via USB-C port(default)
- 3.6-5V via Vin header pin
- Dimensions – 45.5 x 25.8 mm
- Certifications – FCC and CE certified
The board supports the official Raspberry Pi Pico C and MicroPython SDKs, but Seeed Studio is working on a custom Wio RP2040 Module MicroPython UF2 bootloader with support for wireless drivers, network, usocket, MQTT, supported out of the box.
Wio RP2040 Wifi mini development board is based on the company’s 18.0x 28.2 mm Wio RP2040 module sold separately, but we don’t know exactly which WiFi chip is used, so it could be ESP8266 or something else. The combination here makes more sense since the RP2040 microcontroller should be more powerful than whatever WiFi chip is used here, and offer more I/Os. As always it will depend on your requirements whether it’s worth it for your project. Wireless control, smart home, and smart toys are some of the potential applications for the board.
Both the Wio RP2040 mini dev board and the Wio RP2040 module are available for pre-order now for respectively $12.95 and $6.95 plus shipping respectively. The estimated delivery date is shown to be “Jun 28, 2021“, but that is probably a mistake since further down the description Seeed Studio explains the module is expected in September.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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ESP32
So you mean it’s an ESP32 inside Wio RP2040 module, and they did not even enable Bluetooth?
Why? Maybe because you have an ESP module and you’re sick and tired of being bitten by watchdog timeouts – maybe?
I never experienced a watchdog timeout with over 100 deployed esp82xx/esp32 nodes all running esphome.
Maybe you choose the wrong *ware?
13 USD for a RP2040 with WiFi. lmao, that’s crazy. There are tons of boards which are cheaper and better.