The Arduino Nano RP2040 Connect board was announced the day of Raspberry Pi Pico launch as one of the third-party boards featuring Raspberry Pi RP2040 dual-core Cortex-M0+ microcontroller.
At the time all we had was renders of the board, later on, the company showcased some mass product photos, and then released Arduino Core mbed 2.0 for the board last month. But it’s only today that it has become possible to purchase Arduino Nano RP2040 Connect board for $25.50 on Arduino store with headers.
Nano RP2040 Connect specifications:
- MCU – Raspberry Pi RP2040 dual-core Cortex M0+ microcontroller @ 133 MHz with 264 kB of embedded SRAM
- Storage – 16MB Flash IC (AT25SF128A)
- Connectivity – WiFi 4 & Bluetooth LE via Nina W102 uBlox module (Yes, that’s an ESP32 module.)
- USB – Micro USB port
- I/Os via 2x 15-pin headers (through and castellated holes)
- 20x digital I/O pins, 20x PWM pins, 20x external interrupts
- 8x analog input pins
- UART, I2C, SPI
- DC Current per I/O pin – 4 mA
- Sensors – 6-axis IMU (gyroscope + accelerometer), MEMS microphone
- Misc – Built-in LED, ATECC608A secure element
- Power Supply
- Input – 5V via USB, or 5-21V via VIN
- Operating voltage – 3.3V
- Dimensions – 43.18 x 17.78 mm
- Weight – 6 grams
- SKU: ABX00053
Arduino Nano RP2040 Connect is interesting due to official Arduino IDE support, and it’s one of the first boards with WiFi & Bluetooth connectivity. One downside us the perfectly capable ESP32 WiSoC is underutilized since it’s just as powerful, if not more, than the Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller, as we noted in our article about Pimoroni Pico Wireless carrier board. But at least the Arduino board is compact.
Arduino provides the schematics, pinout diagram, and datasheet in the Arduino store linked in the introduction, and further documentation can also be found on the just-launched Arduino Docs website.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
This vs an ESP32 dev board for $4. ESP32 wins, flawless victory.
Nothing can justify the 25.50 US$ price (40,77 US$ with tax and shipping) !
Why. Do they really expect to make any money on this? It just makes no sense to have the ESP32 and the 2040! The 2040 does have the PIO, and is more powerful, but… *sigh*
What a joke. I can get 6 ESP32 boards, for the price of one of these.
Very Low cost and encouraging the budding hobbyists 🙂 , Just kidding.
Actually I’m seeing *one* possible use case: faster drop-in replacement for an arduino nano with the same pinout. I’m thinking for example about the GRBL controller on my laser engraver. But quite frankly at this price it could cheaper to buy a baseboard made for anything but arduino-nano!
Agreed, you could buy a modern 3D printer controller that’s 32 bit with lots of bells and whistles for $20.