Eight months after its launch, the Raspberry Pi Pico W sees (finally) its Bluetooth support activated. Here’s everything you need to know about this “novelty”.
Launched in June 2022 for just under 9 euros in France, the Raspberry Pi Pico W uses the principle of the microcontroller. It has indeed been designed so that the user can install a program instead of an operating system. The “W” version of the device, for “Wireless”, had for its part brought to the concept the advantage of support for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Only then, Bluetooth connectivity, although technically present, had not yet been activated on the software level.
Bluetooth is finally coming to the Raspberry Pi Pico W
As reported by our colleagues from MacGeneration, it is now done through the SDK 1.5 shared on GitHub. The latter makes it possible to activate Bluetooth connectivity on the Raspberry Pi Pico W without further delay. For the time being, this support is however in beta and by exploiting all the BTstack Bluetooth drivers, available in open source.
With them, the Pico W is able to manage Bluetooth LE, but also the encoding and decoding of the SBC codec, or the serial links. It is also possible to connect, still via Bluetooth, certain input devices, such as keyboards.
What about commercial use?
However, the BTstack Bluetooth library has a limitation. Indeed, its license intends it only for personal use. Understand that commercial use of this Bluetooth stack is not technically permitted.
Theoretically, because as pointed out MacGenerationone of the contributors to the BTstack project commented that he “ will be allowed for more permissive use on the RP2040 “. In other words, the Pico W could be an exception. Same thing (a priori) for Wi-Fi support.
Source : MacGeneration
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