Challenger+ RP2350 WiFi6/BLE5 Review - No Need to Wait for the Pico 2 W

The Challenger+ RP2350 WiFi6/BLE5 is a microcontroller board with the new dual core Cortex-M33/RISCV RP2350 from Raspberry Pi. It has 8MByte of FLASH memory and 8MByte of PSRAM plus WiFi/BLE via an Espressif ESP32-C6 chip.
It supports the the following development environments:
Raspberry Pi Pico C/C++ SDK
Arduino
MicroPython
CircuitPython
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Earle Philhower's Arduino-Pico
github.com/ear...
Buy the Challenger+ RP2350 WiFi6/BLE5:
ilabs.se/chall...
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#garyexplains

[@rickh6963]

Thanks Gary! Informative as usual!

[@GaryExplains]

Glad it was helpful!

[@MandoRick1978]

£23.60 here in the UK. Not gonna happen Gary. New Pico 2 is £4.80. New Pico 2 W should be around £6 to £7. Hardly a comparison.

[@ragesmirk]

correct

[@JG-nm9zk]

And that's before shipping.

[@TheSulross]

Well, is pretty cool how they resurrect old school AT modem commands for communication with this WiFi/Bluetooth sub system. One of my complaints about the new Pico 2 is that 512K RAM is too stingy - would have preferred, say, 2MB. But is true - the Pico 2 has this market on the basis of its low, per unit cost (and brand recognition and brand trust).

[@stephenvalente3296]

Still should have jumped over to USB-C this time around. No excuse for staying with Micro-USB.

[@bradjohnson5323]

Depends on your project, if you need it now, you can have this now, but yes, I predict the Pico 2 W will be 6-8$

[@M.EdwardBorasky]

In case you missed it, there's a Linux kernel running on the RISC-V cores of a SparkFun Pro Micro RP2350.

[@richsadowsky8580]

Another great rp2350-related video. One comment on this new Challenger board is it seems a little bit expensive. At 249kr that's about $24.31 USD. I will order one anyway because the feature set is desirable. I will add that I had bought two Challenger NB RP2040 WiFi boards last year and one of them failed. That's why I buy two of most dev boards especially new releases. I'm currently the Pimoroni line of 2350 products and so far none have failed. Of course, none have WiFI/BLE support yet either.

[@MandoRick1978]

I have more than ten Pico boards and not a single one has failed me. Some I have running 24/7 for more than 18 months now.

[@RichardNobel]

Nice! I've been looking into *ESP32-C6* because of its support for the *Zigbee* protocol. According to the Espressif product page: > _"ESP32-C6 combines 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g/n/ax), Bluetooth 5 (LE), and IEEE 802.15.4 radio connectivity, which is vital for making the Thread and Zigbee protocols available in a variety of cases of application development."_ That's quite a lot of connectivity! This Challenger+ board sounds like a winning combination together with RP2350. 🏆✨ Interesting how the ESP32-C6 has a 32-bit RISC-V processor and the RP2350 also includes RISC-V cores. 🤓

[@TheSulross]

Makes me wonder if one day we’ll see a Raspberry Pi product that is entirely RISC-V based (no presence of ARM at all). Presumably that could get per unit cost of a Pico product down even further. And Gary’s perf specs showed the Pico 2 RISC-V core right there at parity with the ARM core.

[@jeffschroeder4805]

These micro-controllers are becoming so incredibly capable - it is difficult to utilize them to their full potential.

[@Factory400]

Yeah....most of my commercial projects that have microcontrollers never even come close to pushing performance limits. Back in the old days, it was like coding for a 1960's moon mission. Today, it rarely makes sense to performance optimize code. It's typically cheaper to just get a faster chip.

[@hexidev]

​@@Factory400i do really like the integrated peripherals! USB otg support, multiple uarts, some have integrated flash and crystal and etc.

[@M0UAW_IO83]

Which is awesome, you can throw massive amounts of processing, memory and peripherals at all sorts of tasks for not many pennies, I love that I can build in these and all sorts of other chips for so cheap.

[@JoshFisher567]

@@jeffschroeder4805 I'm still amazed that the Bambu P1 and I believe A1 series use an ESP32-S3 for their MCU. The downside as a P1 owner is their terrible bandwidth limitations of 256KB/s so sending a 20MB file to them, even over LAN, is very, very slow. How they also go 1fgp out of the camera at the same time is even more impressive.

[@mytechnotalent]

Thank you Gary great breakdown.

[@milel0]

Another great video, thanks. Would like to have seen an arduino inatall on vscode though.

[@MandoRick1978]

Hey Gaz, cheers for the videos man. Gary, can we give Earle Philhower III some love? I am so super appreciative for his work. I liked the Pico, but the Philhower core made me love the Pico.

[@john_hind]

Any third party boards that bring out all the IO from the larger version of the chip package yet? Only one I could find was the Pimoroni Stamp, but that is really a pure breakout without even a USB connector. Trouble seems to be everybody is using established form factors that do not have sufficient pins (including the Pico 2 itself!).

[@Механизм-ж9я]

I like the idea of universal connector for i2c, spi, uart. Or maybe we should popularize i3c as a modern interconnect solution.

[@Simple-Circuit-Projects]

Gary, enjoy your informative videos. Sorry this comment is off topic but it will be a while before I get my hands on a Pico 2. I have not been able to find any linearity test data on the ADC. I was wondering if you could do a short video on the ADC performance. Thx

[@timballam3675]

As ever support support support....

[@GaryExplains]

Which means what exactly?

[@tuesss]

I'll be honest, I was hoping for an actual review and some crucial information like: - What is the power consumption? - Can the ESP32-C6 chip wake up the RP2350 from deep sleep, for example after receiving some data over network?

[@GaryExplains]

Those are good questions, but they aren't part of a review necessarily, those are specific technical questions that you have for a specific technical scenario.

[@Winnetou17]

@@GaryExplains I don't want to sound (too) ungrateful, but, to be fair this was more of an introduction and presentation of the board, and less of a review. I know that what is a review is quite subjective, but in this day and age and space, it usually implies using the product a bit more in depth. I can give two related examples: for smartphone reviews, the reviewer usually uses the phone for 1 week to a couple of months. Likewise for a game review, the reviewer usually finishes the game (where there's something to finish, of course) or otherwise does play the game for at last several dozens of hours. A review would not only present what the product is, its spec sheet (which this video has a lot, though that's not a bad thing), but also the reviewer's opinion about the product, based on using it (aka not what it hopes that it will be). And this usage has to be more than introductory or trivial stuff. Of course, not the most complicated thing, but either something that would be an interesting use case (usually reviewers satisfy their own curiosity through things like these) or a common use case for that product. Last thing, mentioning how much the product costs is pretty important in a review. Or a mention that the price was not known/available when the review was made. Otherwise people will jump to conclusions (really, one of the things that random people are best at) like the price being ommited on purpose and other conspiracy theories. I hope this was useful. Thank you again for your work and I wish you a good day!

[@johnwilson3918]

If you're in a rush to have WiFi and BT on your RP2350 - there is a cheaper alternative. I bought a few ESP32-C3 Super Mini from Aliexpess for £1.30 each and used one of them on my Pimoroni Pico 2 + to give that networking capability. It was a case of blowing the Expressive AT firmware onto the C3 and using a MOSFET with a couple of resistors to reset (power cycle) the ESP. I also had a Pimoroni Wireless Jetpack in my spares box and WiFi works a treat over SPI using one of these. Unfortunately, Pimoroni no longer sell these boards.

[@bertblankenstein3738]

Yhea at 6:00 you talk about the RPi Pico 2 W having an ESP32 C6. Similar to the Arduino 4 w wifi. I'm a bit more on the ESP32 controllers so .. I will wait for the Pico 2 W and get some of those. Raspberry Pi has pretty good products and I'll stick to that line.

[@GaryExplains]

I didn't say that Pico W 2 will have a C6 specifically, I was mentioning that it will have a second chip for WiFi. I don't know which chip it will be.

[@dabunnisher29]

Love your channel. I will say what we are all feeling. Having to wait for the Pico 2 W is BULLSHIT.

[@ragesmirk]

look at the price

[@MandoRick1978]

Nah, I don't mind waiting. Raspberry Pi has been very good to me over the years, extremely reliable and amazing value for money. They can take whatever time they need.

[@gabec77geo]

Pico 2W is here, the Challenger+ has more flash and esp32 as wifi for which I'd be even willing to pay. Yet the post fee from ilabs (Sveden) cost almost as much as the board itself :/

[@JoshFisher567]

The ESP32-P4 doesn't have WiFi or Bluetooth either, they released their first development board and it uses a C6 for WiFi/BT/Zigbee/Thread. It can decode h264 at 1080p30fps, has over 50 usable GPIO pins and dedicated pins for Ethernet (100Mbps).

[@hstrinzel]

I'm finding it amazing that NOBODY has posted ANY projects yet with the Pico 2, or am I just too impatient? For the original Pico there are TONS of projects, but not for the Pico 2.

[@GaryExplains]

Since it is highly compatible with the original Pico then I am unsure what new projects you will see that are exclusively for the Pico 2. Maybe some video related projects, DVI etc.

[@skipperbanks9301]

This is all nice however I have a 1 acre property and I want to communicate between any controller on that property. Someone needs to support Lora or something out of the box. I may need to use ESP Now on a different controller. By the way I have communicated with Gary in the past, one of the best guys on earth ( and perhaps Mars also ) :)

[@vencdee]

Definitely LORA would be great to have!

[@perditaolio4163]

you know about the issues with the internal pull-down resistors?

[@keyboard_g]

I’d like to see how the Pico2 performs in the BlueScsi. Maybe it increases throughput?

[@freddyvretrozone2849]

Hi, Is there a library for pico sdk and esp32 ? C6 or C3 ?

[@dvohwinkel]

timecode 10:23 you show the Challenger RP2040 WiFi6/BLE and the Challenger+ RP2350 WiFi/BLE.. I think you meant to put the WiFi6 on the 2350 and not the 2040.

[@djsbriscoe]

Time to let some dust settle before buying one of these, I think.

[@Anticitizen666]

I don't have to wait - I picked a few up on launch day - it's nice living near the physical Raspberry Pi store - they ALWAYS have stock of everything - even when you couldn't get Pi5s anywhere else (except for scalpers on Ebay), they were in stock there. They actually have reels from the factory so they just cut off as many as you want :)

[@GaryExplains]

You have a Pico 2 W with Wi-fi?

[@Anticitizen666]

@@GaryExplains no just the official Pico 2 boards. One of the few benefits of living near Cambridge in the UK is easy access to Pis 😁

[@GaryExplains]

As I thought. The thumbnail and headline say Pico 2 W not Pico 2.

[@trowawayacc]

Why is the challenger so much more expensive? Than the RP?

[@angeldelvax7219]

Available for platformio too?

[@Ollital]

I'm that old to remember +++ ATH0 NO CARRIER 🙂

[@maarkkk]

There is another aspect - using two uC instead of one means more power used. And being used to specific programming environment is not good excuse in such applications :)

[@GaryExplains]

Have you seen the ESP32-P4 dev kit?

[@maarkkk]

@@GaryExplains Now yes :) Impressive :)

[@maarkkk]

I've been using wt32-sc01 - but it is based on standard ESP32.

[@GaryExplains]

And as you see it uses two chips. 😜

[@maarkkk]

@@GaryExplains You're right. When it comes to having more computational power - this is a solution. However one would argue that one could use one even more powerful chip (one core more) (but P4 does not provide communiation, thus the solution) :)

[@marcinoo97]

my only wish would be a support for at least usb 2 speeds.

[@tonysheerness2427]

Why did Raspberry Pi give their competitors an advantage and not bring out a wifi model?

[@richards7909]

Because it makes the product cheaper and not everyone wants WiFi\Blueooth. :)

[@tonysheerness2427]

@@richards7909 Every one else is producing boards using raspberry pi's 2350 with or without wifi. Why didn't raspberry pui produce both? Is it because they can not keep with demand of what they already have?

[@richards7909]

@@tonysheerness2427 Already given one reason… However, it could also be that looking at the sales of the original Pico that the WiFi/Bluetooth version doesn’t sell as many as the Pico without. It’s also possible that they do not have enough chips or enough boards to start shipping yet. Only Raspberry Pi know and they obviously have their reasons :)

[@stevetodd7383]

They are bringing out a WiFi model, just it’s going to be a few weeks before it hits the shelves. It’s not much of an advantage, especially if those competitors are using Raspberry Pi chips as the heart of their offerings (so it’s still a sale for Raspberry Pi)

[@MandoRick1978]

Why? Because they are cool. Nuff said.

[@daveh7720]

I'm just starting to look at BLE and I hope someone can point me to some information about it. My Android phone supports it. (It talks to my smartwatch and fitnerss tracker.) Would I be able to use the phone as a pseudo-serial console for applications on the Challenger+?

[@ivolol]

At that point why not just have an esp32-c6 board; already riscv, and it would probably be a 3rd the price...

[@GaryExplains]

😂 05:46

[@dktr2]

What's the purpose of having this RP2350 on the board when there's an equally powerful ESP right next to it?

[@GaryExplains]

😂 05:46

[@MandoRick1978]

I can give you excellent reasons why. Programming the ESP is a pig, especially for new coders. If I ask a new coder to write me a simple snippet that uses both cores, it looks like Greek and they have to look it up. The same action can be done using the Philhower core by simply using Setup, Setup1, Loop, and Loop1. Do not even get me started on libraries and the ESP32.

[@archibaldbuttle7]

because it's not "equally powerful". the RP2350 has PIO. that can be immensely powerful for I/O on the RP2350, giving it much better capabilities than any ESP32. Also even without considering the advantages of PIO, the base-level RP2350A (which this board uses) has more GPIO channels than the ESP32-C3 (30 vs 22) or any other RISC-V-based ESP32 chip. the ESP32-C3 is also only a single core device. it's currently not possible to get dual-core RISC-V-based ESP32 chips. (given Espressif's propensity for announcing products a year or more before they become generally available I wouldn't hold my breath)

[@MandoRick1978]

I ran a test a while back. First a simple speed checker running Fibonacci. Obviously the ESP was faster than the Pico. Then I ran a hardware test. All it did was switch io pins on and off. The ESP was significantly slower than the Pico. I had to search around for a reason. Best I could find was architecture. Sometimes the ESP is slower. I found it interesting anyway.

[@serpent213]

@@archibaldbuttle7 Well, at least I received my P4 devkit yesterday. 🙂

[@ttssoon1975]

If U hv ESP32, what's the purpose of RP2350? The ESP32 is far more powerful than RP2350.

[@GaryExplains]

😂😂😂 05:46 And just for the record the ESP32-C6 is not more powerful that the RP2350.

[@TheLouKou]

Oh, come one Gary! i'm starting to believe that you keep saying "eXpresif" on purpose....

[@GaryExplains]

I do say it on purpose. Espressif is clearly a play on words of Expressive.

[@RichardNobel]

@@GaryExplains I thought "ESP" was meant to spell out: _Extra _*_Sensory_*_ Perception_ 😉 With all the options of attaching sensors to the boards. As well as the various communication channels that the chip (package) supports. 😁

[@d.barnette2687]

Greetings from across the pond near Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA. How about some MicroPython examples, with some simple examples on how to use GPIO I2C pins on the Challenger+ RP2350?? There seems to be a paucity of such examples.

[@seebaastian]

Ok, if you have a esp32 processor onboard, why should you need a raspberry microcontroller?

[@GaryExplains]

😂 05:46

[@joseoncrack]

@@GaryExplains Yep. Besides, the RP2350, even just per core, has significantly better performance than the ESP32-C6. And we have two such cores! And the PIO is also very handy and something you don't get with an ESP32. The only thing that can be somewhat questioned here is running this board off a LiPo battery. The power consumption combined of the RP2350 + ESP32-C6 (and not even talking about when WiFi is active) is pretty "high", and the low-power modes of both are not fantastic. So don't expect miracles in terms of battery life here. But of course all depends on the use case and the capacity of said battery.

[@Ender_Wiggin]

meh why use a esp32-c6 and rp2350. A esp32-c6 is already everything you need. I don't understand why all these board exist.

[@GaryExplains]

😂😂 05:46

[@Ender_Wiggin]

@@GaryExplains I liliterly finished watching it all the way through and saw that you addressed it. Still think something like a cc3300 would be better but you have a point to do networking you basically need a dedicated core for it.