Wemos has designed some great WiFi IoT boards over the last few years with products like Wemos D1 mini or Lolin32 based on Espressif Systems ESP8266 and ESP32 processors respectively.
But the company has recently launched its cheapest board ever, with W600-PICO board going for just $2.10 + shipping. The board is based on Winner Micro W600 Arm Cortex-M3 WiSoC, and comes pre-loaded with MicroPython firmware.
Wemos W600-PICO V1.0.0 specifications:
- SoC – Winner Micro W600 Arm Cortex-M3 MCU @ 80MHz with 1MB Flash
- Wireless Connectivity – 2.4GHz 802.11 b/g/n WiFi 4 up to 150 Mbps
- USB – 1x Micro USB port for power and programming (via CH340 USB to TTL chip)
- Expansion – 2x 10-pin headers with 15x GPIO, 9x PWM, 1x I2C, 1x SPI, 1x UART, Wake Up, Reset, 5V, 3.3V, and GND signals; 3.3V I/O voltage.
- Misc – Reset button
- Power Supply – 5V via micro USB port
- Dimensions – 33×20.3mm
- Weight – 3 grams
The board will ship with MicroPython firmware, and Wemos has set-up a Wiki for the board explaining how to flash the board, and get started with networking, I/Os, RTC, and timers. Users who purchased the board on Aliexpress appear to be satisfied, and one mentions “Micropython works immediately”.
We previously covered other boards based on W600 WiSoC, including Wio Lite board which supports Arduino. But we should note that board also comes with a SAMD21 MCU which controls a W600 WiFi module using AT commands instead. meaning the Arduino sketch is running on the Microchip MCU, and not W600. I may be wrong, but it appears there’s no Arduino support for W600 just yet, and the two main options for development are MicroPython or the FreeRTOS SDK.
I would have expected the company to design W600-PICO board in the same form factor as Wemos D1 mini in order to leverage the several add-on boards they have for the board, but sadly this is not the case.
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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