anyone seen the new pi Pico? looks like they are trying to compete with Arduino in the MCU world now. not sure how that will go for them. i wonder if we will start seeing these integrated into CNC and 3DP units, if for no other reason then so many of those machine are connected to PIs now.
thoughts?
Very interesting… $4 for a decent 32bit arm device with built in usb and python will definitely add to the toolbox. It will be very compelling for situations where you don’t need hdmi of pzero. Given that it doesn’t have wireless though, I bet esp32 has best chance now of being our go to hobby bot board.
i was thinking the same thing, not sure how there $4 device can really compete with a $7 esp32 that has WIFI and Bluetooth. but maybe it will gain some popularity because of name alone?
I’m not that impressed. It does seem like a strong micro, but compared to an stm32 or an esp32, it doesn’t have enough punch. But then, the pis have never been the cheapest or fastest and they have been popular because they are balanced, but with good documentation.
They do have this little co processor thing pio. That seems pretty neat. You can write up to 32 asm instructions and then just feed it bytes and it will handle the bit banging for you. It would be great for things like the neopixels or for special buses. I don’t imagine many users will write pio assembly, but hopefully the libraries can take advantage of that.
And just to be clear, it is not a regular pi by any means. It will not be running octoprint anytime soon.
Haha I would love to see it try, it would probably burst into flames. Definable not a normal pi, it is the dive you connect to a nor.al pi to do some real work xp
Here is a write up of exactly what I was talking about:
I have recently begun an Udemy class in python. Not primarily with microcontrollers in mind, but simply to learn a language more thoroughly. I’ve already realized that micro/circut-python is a thing, and it seems quite nifty! Being able to run and manipulate code on the go makes developing so much easier. The drawback is that it takes more resources from the microcontroller. Never had the nerves to get properly into arduino ide/c++, python seems more accessible to a soft skinned guy as me…
Nice to see the pico is python compatible, but then again- so is the esp32 and esp8266.
yup and the ESP32 is significantly more powerful except for the PIO, that seems to be pico’s main positive aspect.
I wonder what boards or ecosystems are the newest and and most interesting atm. I came across some cheap, but well specced controllers WITH small screens. Seemed fun, but forgot their name. Adafruit seems fun, but their platform feels bloated to me, soooo many options. Are there other trends worth mentioning?
I mentioned it in another thread, but the esp32s with screens I like are called TTGO on banggood. There are dome others, like a watch or ones with built in cameras. There are also a lot for the wemos d1 form factor and nodemcu form factor.
I have one of the original micropython boards and I love it. I just love the python libraries on the desktop too much. Any company with an api has a python library. So it is so easy to interact with slack, or weather services, or databases.
I would like to try playing with python and some neopixels though. I would be happier bring creative in python than in C.
I did all the adventofcode.com puzzles in python this year. It is such a joy.
The Arduino people have announced that they will be producing a board based on the pico chip that will have wifi, bluetooth, and a 9 axis IMU. That sounds like a more interesting board. They will also be producing an arduino programming evireonment port, of course.
I’m very interested to see what use people put the PIO to. This does seem to be the capability that sets the pico apart.
I’ve also seen mention of similar options from Sparkfun and Adafruit.
I’m a fan of Adafruit for a bunch of reasons, including the example Limor Fried sets as a female founder and engineer, and her socially conscious approach to running the business. I’ve also used Adafruit produced Arduino libraries quite a bit, so often start there when noodling over a new electronics project.
Thanks for this. I need to look into a course like this.
It seems surprisingly capable! https://www.tomshardware.com/news/raspberry-pi-pico-bbc-micro-demos
The arduino variant seems super interesting, it remains to see what price they’ll land on. I also like the adafruit spirit, even if their ecosystem is kinda confusing.
So far the Udemy course is quite all right. I’m taking
https://www.udemy.com/share/101WacAEcTdVxTTH4D/ the progression is quite decent, sometimes a little slow, other times perfectly timed. I’m a little annoyed about their pricing strategies. I got the course at 90% off, and each time I checked they told me I only had 4 hours left of “special offer”… the courses seem serious, but the pricing approach is a little deterring.
I would like that. Assuming it is less than the Yun. 
It just seems weird because the esp32 is years old now and they are struggling to reach this price point and features. I feel like it is a better value than a teensy, but why can’t they catch espressif?
Very nice roundup of community responses to the Pico: https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/raspberry-pi-pico-what-did-you-think/