Pico W

Unlike the Raspberry Pi boards in the other labs here, the Pico W is a microcontroller, not a single-board computer. That makes it smaller and less expensive. It cannot run a full operating system, but it still shines in embedded electronics projects where you need direct, low-level control of hardware. Compared to the standard Pico, the Pico W adds built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

You use it to directly and precisely manage sensors, motors, LEDs, buttons, displays, buzzers, and other peripherals with deterministic timing. It lets you bit-bang custom protocols without taxing the CPU.

The most important use case for a mini robot companion, for example, would be the dedicated real-time peripheral controller, the responsive nervous system and actuator paired with your Raspberry Pi as the brain.

This example shows the basic LED on the microcontroller. Turning it on and off for four seconds.