raspberry pi pico
On Monday (8/18/2025), I bought a Raspberry Pi Pico 2 W from Vilros. I had been wanting to get something similar to my Raspberry Pi Zero (or another one) for a while, and I finally decided to go for the Pico. I considered going for an ESP32, but there are just too many options/versions/manufacturers - there are a few different Pico manufacturers also, so I went with the one I knew. And if I decide I want to try an ESP32 later, I can always get one then.
I mentioned Vilros specifically because they are an excellent source for Raspberry Pi and Arduino products. I have always had good experiences with them, and they offer free shipping. The Pico 2 W normally goes for $7.00, they charged $8.61 - I added in a $3.99 cable and the total came to $12.60. However they build in the shipping and tax, I don’t know, but I am happy with the price. They do have other shipping options, but I go with the free one for anything under $10.
The Pico 2 W is a microcontroller board, not a full computer like the Raspberry Pi Zero. It has 4MB QSPI Flash, 520KB of RAM, dual Arm Cortex-M33 processors running at 150MHz, and… built-in WiFi and Bluetooth. It is a very capable little board. This will be my first time working with a microcontroller of my own, so I am looking forward to seeing what I can do with it.
Anyway, I got distracted. I ordered the Pico 2 W on Monday, and it should arrive tomorrow (Saturday). Right now, I’m making my plan. Since there isn’t an operating system on it, you need to jump in feet first. The Pico 2 W supports C/C++ and MicroPython/CircuitPython. I don’t trust my C/C++ skills enough to go that route, so I plan to use MicroPython on it. I’m choosing MicroPython over CircuitPython because it seems to be more widely used and it has its own firmware for the Pico 2 W
https://micropython.org/download/RPI_PICO2_W/
That seems like a good place to start. Thonny seems to be the IDE of choice for
MicroPython development, so I will probably use that for a while anyway. It
should have a REPL for talking directly to the Pico, that should make it
easy to poke around and see what it can do.
Fun fact (for me), since there is no OS, just write boot.py and main.py files
and those will run on boot.
Ideally, I want to be able to connect to the Pico over WiFi, so I can use webREPL.
Theoretically, you can run import webrepl_setup and it will set up the webREPL
like this? There doesn’t seem to be a lot of information about it, so I will see
what happens when I get there.
import network
import time
import webrepl
def do_connect():
# WiFi SSID and Password
wifi_ssid = "YOUR SSID" # YOUR WiFi SSID
wifi_password = "YOUR PASSWORD" # YOUR WiFi PASSWORD
# Wireless config : Station mode
station = network.WLAN(network.STA_IF)
station.active(True)
# Continually try to connect to WiFi access point
while not station.isconnected():
# Try to connect to WiFi access point
print("Connecting...")
station.connect(wifi_ssid, wifi_password)
time.sleep(10)
# Display connection details
print("Connected!")
print("My IP Address:", station.ifconfig()[0])
if __name__ == "__main__":
do_connect()
webrepl.start()
Anyway, I just wanted to make myself some notes and get things downloaded and ready as best I can before the Pico arrives. I will post an update once I have it set up and working.
Just found a telnet server for MicroPython on GitHub. That might work if webREPL doesn’t.
…to be continued.
Update: The Pico is up and running. I’ve got a little boot script to flicker the onboard LED when prepping globals and activating the network card, blinking while obtaining a network address and setting time, then going solid once all set on the network. After that, webREPL starts up for testing and file transfers.
I think my immediate plan is to have the main loop put it to deep sleep at midnight
(if it is idle and not already sleeping), then wake up hourly, connect to WiFi
and check scheduled tasks starting at 10am.
After 6pm, it will stay online and awake or in light sleep until
midnight. That way, it can do whatever I end up scheduling during the day,
and then online for me to mess with in the evening. I may end up setting up a
little web server on it, so I can check status and maybe kick off tasks. Until then,
I’ll probably just use a little btree database to store scheduled tasks and whatnot.
I will post more as I get things set up. The biggest issue I’ve run into is my router blocking the Pico from connecting for an hour after a certain number of reboots in a short period. I can reset the router, but I’m lazy. Anyway, so far, so good.