Pico W5 is a Raspberry Pi Pico 2 W alternative with RP2350 MCU, dual-band WiFi 4, 8MB flash

The Pico W5 is a Raspberry Pi RP2350 development board providing an alternative to the official Raspberry Pi Pico 2 W with dual-band (2.4GHz/5GHz) WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity through a B&T BW16 wireless module.

Besides dual-band WiFi, there are a few other small changes compared to the Raspberry Pi Pico 2 W, including a USB Type-C connector, a larger 8MB flash, and a Reset button. As far as I know, it’s the first RP2350 board with 5GHz WiFi, as other RP2350 boards with WiFi, such as the Challenger+ RP2350 WiFi6/BLE5 and Pimoroni Pico Plus 2 W, only support 2.4GHz WiFi.

Pico W5 specifications:

• SoC – Raspberry Pi RP2350
  • CPU
    • Dual-core Arm Cortex-M33 @ 150 MHz with Arm Trustzone, Secure boot and
    • Dual-core RISC-V Hazard3 @ 150 MHz
    • Only two cores can be used at any given time
  • Memory – 520 KB on-chip SRAM
  • Security
    • 8KB of anti-fuse OTP for key storage
    • Secure boot (Arm only)
    • SHA-256 acceleration
    • Hardware TRNG
    • Fast glitch detectors
  • Package – QFN-60
• Storage – 8 MB on-board QSPI flash
• Wireless – 2.4GHz/5GHz 802.11n WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 5.0 (LE) through Realtek RTL8720DN-based BW16 module.
• USB – USB Type-C 1.1 host/device connector for power and programming
• Expansion – 26-pin GPIO header with
  • 2x UART
  • 2x SPI controllers
  • 2x I2C controllers
  • 24x PWM channels
  • 4x ADC
  • 3x PIO blocks, 12x PIO (Programmable IO) state machines
• Misc – Boot and Reset buttons
• Debugging – 3-pin SWD debug interface
• Power Supply – 5V via USB-C port
• Dimensions – 51 x 21 mm
• Weight – 3 grams
• Temperature Range – -10 to 60°C

The Pico W5 board supports Arduino and MicroPython programming and Electrow also provides instructions to integrate the board with Home Assistant on the Wiki. However, note that all these tutorials are for an earlier iteration of the board based on the Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller, so you would need to adapt the steps for Raspberry Pi RP2350 2 W instead.

The Pico W5 RP2350 board can be purchased on the Elecrow store for $6.90 plus shipping. You’ll also find it on AliExpress for $11.76 including shipping, but that’s the RP2040 model, not the new RP2350 variant. Considering the official Raspberry Pi Pico 2 W sells for just $7, the Pico W5 RP2350 board will only be a useful alternative for people needing 5 GHz WiFi, although the larger flash capacity, USB-C port, and Reset button also offer some small benefits. If you are lucky, you may even get one for free, as Elecrow is giving away 30 pieces this month.

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