Raspberry Pi Pico vs ESP32

Arm chips are becoming more common with microcontrollers, Adafruit, Seeed and SparkFun have all developed boards with Arm chips. Microcontrollers do not necessarily need multiple cores and fast speeds as they are typically used for a single part of a process. Before the Raspberry Pi Pico arrived, there was a sharp distinction between the Raspberry Pi and Arduino ecosystems. The Pi is a Linux computer that boots up into a full operating system and the Arduino is  a microcontroller that just runs one program at a time. With the arrival of the Raspberry Pi Pico, which is itself a microcontroller, and the new RP2040 SoC, the distinction has blurred. Raspberry Pi Foundation now makes its own silicon, and is enabling partners to use ‘Pi Silicon’ in their boards including Arduino which is working on its own RP2040-based board with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

A dual-core or single-core Tensilica Xtensa LX6 microprocessor with a clock rate of up to 240 MHz is at its heart. Antenna switches, RF baluns, power amplifiers, low-noise receive amplifiers, filters, and power management modules are all included into the ESP32. The ESP 32, on the other hand, is a small but powerful microcontroller board. It is a very well-developed microchip that may be utilized in a variety of IoT applications because of its low cost, low power consumption, and small size.

It is not a full-fledged computer like the company’s previous offerings but a tiny microcontroller board similar to the Arduino. The ESP32 is not used in industry as much as the Raspberry Pi, but it is slowly gaining traction. The main raspberry pi pico vs esp32 reason for this is that the ESP32 is less popular and doesn’t have as many applications. However, it is gaining popularity in the IoT and embedded systems world, so there may be some industrial applications for it in the future.

ESP32 is a superior choice for IoT applications than Raspberry Pi Pico due to its increased processing power and memory, as well as native WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity. The Pico is a more budget-friendly and energy conserving option if you’re in the market for an electric skateboard. But how does the Pico shape up against Arduino’s flagship board the Portenta H7? Well the Portenta H7 features a dual core Arm Cortex M7 + M4 that can run up to 480 MHz and have up to 2MB of flash storage and 1MB of RAM.

Overview of RP2040

Using a microcontroller is not difficult, especially if you have some experience with electronics and coding. The most popular way to use a microcontroller is through an integrated development environment (IDE), which is a software application that provides a platform for coding, compiling, and debugging code. If you’re looking for a smaller, single-board computer with fewer features that’s easy to use for simple applications like LED projects, the Raspberry Pi Pico is your best bet. If you need something more powerful for data-heavy projects, go with an ESP32 instead. It doesn’t take too much hardware to recreate this project but Tomoiagă warns that the project both overclocks and overvolts the RP2040 processor and to proceed at your own risk. Because the Pico is an affordable board, the risk isn’t all that high and we think the end result is well worth living on the edge for.

The Raspberry Pi Pico W could replace many Raspberry Pi Zero W based projects, such as low powered robots and data collection projects. As with the common Raspberry Pi Linux machines, the main emphasis is usually on getting users up and running quickly but with some copious documentation. The Raspberry Pi Pico offers a RAM flash memory of 264 KB, and the RAM flash memory of ESP32 C3 amounts to 400KB SRAM.

This means that we need to break out the soldering iron and solder up the 40 GPIO pins ready for the breadboard. We did just that using our Pinecil soldering iron and after connecting via the micro USB port (we still wish the Pico had USB-C), we then hooked up a strip of WS2812B (NeoPixels) for a project. Using a community created MicroPython library we soon had those RGB LEDs color changing and pulsing with light.

In fact, in the case of both options, you will also find an interpreter as well. However, if you are using ESP32 C3, you may choose to have either C++ or MicroPython in smaller projects. Power consumption is yet another factor that counts a lot when looking forward to investing in a microcontroller. The microcontrollers also support other interfaces, and the ESP32 C3 supports UART, GPIO, ADC, PWM, SPI, and I2C interfaces.

Even though the Raspberry Pi Pico is a very powerful board, its main disadvantage over its competitors like ESP8266 or ESP32 is the lack of wireless connectivity. The new Pico W comes with an Infineon CYW43439 chip that’s supposed to support both 2.4 GHz WiFi 4 and Bluetooth LE 5.2. Even though the Chip supports Bluetooth 5.2, it is not enabled at this time. The Raspberry Pi foundation may enable it in the future through some firmware updates. Raspberry Pi Pico is a low-cost, versatile microcontroller development board from the Raspberry pi foundation.

To help you decide, we’ll compare the two platforms based on functionality, value, power consumption and more. During the global chip shortage, Raspberry Pi’s RP2040 SoC has been in plentiful supply. Raspberry Pi even used the chip in its Build HAT Lego compatible board for the Raspberry Pi due to dwindling STM32 microcontroller stocks. Pi Founder and CEO Eben Upton has said that they can make thousands of RP2040 chips. This is in stark contrast to other Raspberry Pis which are often in short supply.

Is Raspberry Pi Pico Good for Beginners?

It is constructed around the RP2040 chip, which was designed in-house by the Raspberry Pi Foundation. It was released in January 2021, and it’s been a very popular development board among the DIY community ever since. Now, a year and a half after the first release, the Raspberry Pi foundation just released a few variants for the Pico board namely Pico H, Pico W and Pico WH. It’s also said to be backed by particularly well documentation along with a number of working examples. At the end of the day, it is said to run a pair of other familiar ARM MO+ CPU cores.

Overview of RP2040
The Raspberry Pi RP2040 is the company’s first microcontroller. It brings to the microcontroller arena our distinctive values of great performance, low cost, and ease of use. It provides the lowest possible barrier to entry for beginning and amateur users, with thorough documentation, a polished MicroPython port, and a UF2 bootloader in ROM.

However, in the case of ESP32 C3, there are three different options; while it is spiked with the WiFi, it consumes more than 100 mA. While it is in light sleep mode, it will consume 2mA, and for deep sleep, it consumes about 100uA. As far as long-range Bluetooth is concerned, in the case of ESP32 C3, Bluetooth 5 LE is offered, allowing IoT applications to be accessed securely. On the other hand, the Raspberry Pi Pico doesn’t offer Bluetooth connectivity.

It provides the lowest possible barrier to entry for beginning and amateur users, with thorough documentation, a polished MicroPython port, and a UF2   bootloader in ROM. Microcontroller boards are self-contained units that include a microprocessor, memory, and input/output (I/O) peripherals on a single chip or circuit board. They are designed to perform a specific task or set of tasks, usually with real-time computing constraints. Microcontroller boards are used in a wide range of applications, including automotive electronics, industrial control systems, consumer electronics, and office automation.

Differences between the RP2040 and ESP32’s Features

Third, it has a larger form factor, so it may not be able to be used in applications where space is limited. From the same 5.21V supply we recorded 5.18V at 290mA, 1.5W for the Arduino Uno and the Neopixels! So the Arduino Uno consumes the least amount of power but then that was to be expected given that it has the slowest processor. If we were to repeat the test with another board, say the Portenta H7, then we would see a much higher power use as the Arm CPU used on the Portenta is more powerful than even the RP2040. There are alternatives to the Arduino IDE, including Arduino Create, a cloud version of the IDE which is free for limited use, but to do anything “serious” we need to sign up for a paid plan.

The project relies on the Mini-rv32ima emulator core which enables the Pico to run Linux. According to Tomoiagă, it uses two 8 MB SPI PSRAM chips as memory with 4 https://traderoom.info/ kB of cache to prevent bottlenecking from the SPI interface. Tomoiagă explains this idea came from the uc32-rvima project created by a maker known as xhackerustc.

Ore advanced users can change the board, ports and libraries used in a project, features which have seen great improvement in recent Arduino IDE releases. The Raspberry Pi Pico GPIO offers plenty of digital IO, three analog inputs and multiple I2C, SPI and UART connections. All of this from a $4 board means the Raspberry Pi Pico is a low cost “Swiss Army knife” of GPIO pins. The Raspberry Pi Pico introduces a new form factor to the Raspberry Pi ecosystem, a 40 pin ‘DIP’ style PCB. All 40 pins are broken out to standard pads and, around the perimeter, there are castellations which can be used to solder the Pico to a carrier board in a similar fashion to surface mount electronics.

Raspberry Pi Pico is a great choice for home automation because it is cheaper and more energy-efficient than the ESP32. However, the ESP32 is a better choice if you need more processing power or memory, or if you need built-in WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity. The ESP32 is a low-cost, low-power system on a chip (SoC) with Wi-Fi & dual-mode Bluetooth capabilities! The ESP32 can be used as a standalone microcontroller or as a module in various systems to provide WiFi and Bluetooth functionality. Finally, the RP2040 features on-chip programmable I/O (PIO) state machines.

If you would like to write C code on your Raspberry Pi Pico, then you have two main choices. Both of these approaches are possible but they are not the most user friendly. However, help may soon be at hand via an update to the Arduino IDE with support for the RP2040 chip. The first Arduino board was introduced in 2005 and, since then, millions have been sold and a huge ecosystem has arisen. Meanwhile, the Raspberry Pi Pico just launched recently, but already we’re seeing a ton of support for it.

It is also very popular, so there are a lot of resources available for it. The Raspberry Pi Zero is a smaller and more affordable version of the Raspberry Pi. It does not have as much power as the other two options, but it is still a very capable microcontroller.

However, it is not as well-supported as other platforms, so you may run into problems. Additionally, Arduino IDE does not have as many features as other platforms, so you may want to consider another option if you need more advanced features. ESP32 is a security risk because it can be used to create backdoors and exploits. Additionally, ESP32 is not as well-supported as Raspberry Pi Pico, which means that there are fewer people who can help you if you run into problems.

• It may not be the first RP2040 board to offer Wi-Fi –  but we are sure that the Raspberry Pi Pico W is going to go straight onto our list of best RP2040 boards.
• The Raspberry Pi Pico also allows you a bit more flexibility in choosing your power supply.
• All 40 pins are broken out to standard pads and, around the perimeter, there are castellations which can be used to solder the Pico to a carrier board in a similar fashion to surface mount electronics.
• But the Pico is much cheaper, i.e. for low-cost projects without Bluetooth or WiFi this is ideal.
• Resellers often bundle its libraries into a bespoke firmware which can be flashed to the Pico as a UF2 file.

A new Raspberry Pi Pico W means they will have to test and update their software in order for us to reuse our old kit. Resellers often bundle its libraries into a bespoke firmware which can be flashed to the Pico as a UF2 file. For now we cannot reliably test addons, but we shall and provide you with the information in a future update. The Raspberry Pi Pico W comes just like any other Pico, with no header pins.

The RP2040 is a stateless device with external QSPI memory cached execute-in-place functionality. This design option allows you to select the right density of nonvolatile storage for your application while also taking advantage of commodity Flash’s low pricing. The RP2040 is built on a cutting-edge 40nm process node that delivers great performance, low dynamic power consumption, and low leakage, as well as a range of low-power modes to facilitate extended battery operation. The Raspberry Pi Pico is a beginner-friendly microcontroller board that uses MicroPython to provide a warm introduction to the IoT branch and microcontrollers.

If there’s one thing the Raspberry Pi community does well, it’s push the boundaries of what these boards are capable of. Maker Vlad Tomoiagă has done just that with this exciting RISC-V emulator project. Based on Mini-rv32ima, created by CNLohr, this Pico version, dubbed Pico-rv32ima, is able to run Linux. Don’t get us wrong; we have many clone boards in our workshop, but each of those boards has its own quirks that we must work around. The Arduino IDE workflow has been influenced by years of improvements and feedback; the entire process happens in app with very limited interaction from the user.

With the launch of Raspberry Pi Pico, the 1st microcontroller silicon from Raspberry Pi has been getting the attention of many makers and industries. In the time that the Pico has been with us, there have been a few notable attempts to add Wi-Fi connectivity to Raspberry Pi’s RP2040 processor The first was via Adafruit’s Airlift Featherwing Co-Processor. We managed to connect to and use this board with a Raspberry Pi Pico. A more “refined” alternative came in the form of Pimoroni’s Pico Wireless, which came as a “pack” that slotted over the entire GPIO. CircuitPython is the pinnacle of easy to use and it has become our preferred means to code for the Pico. At the time of writing there is no version for the Raspberry Pi Pico W, but we believe that will change once the board is officially released.