A while back, the Raspberry Pi Foundation released a new version of their microcontroller-based board, the Raspberry Pi Pico. The Pi Pico W features the same powerful RP2040 microcontroller found in all Pi Zeros, but adds WiFi and Bluetooth with the addition of a small co-processor. It’s a winning combo for any microcontroller enthusiast by any measure.
Invector Labs took this idea, ran with it, and came up with a similar board that offers the capabilities, but in a format that’s a bit more familiar to the hardware enthusiast. The Challenger RP2040 WiFi/BLE uses the same main chip as the Pi Pico, but adds an ESP32-C3FN4 for WiFI and BLE capabilities. It’s also compatible with the Adafruit Feather format and includes a 1-cell LiPo battery charger, with everything charging over a USB-C connector.
There’s a lot of weight behind the Feather ecosystem, and if you’re looking for a microcontroller board that can be easily powered by battery, you really can’t find anything better. The code is great, too, with Micropython support, a UF2 bootloader in ROM, and documentation abounds.
On the wireless side of things, the Challenger RP2040 WiFi/BE includes a RISC-V microcontroller and 2.4GHz radio with a AT interpreter providing low-level TCP/UDP functionality, web server, MQTT server, and other client functions. All of this is accessible by the RP2040 over a high-speed UART or SPI channel.
If you want to get into microcontroller work, the RP2040 is a great place to start, and the Challenger RP2040 WiFi/BLE offers a lot of functionality for a very low price.
