RAKwireless Adopts the Raspberry Pi RP2040 in New WisDuo LPWAN LoRa Module, WisBlock Module

RAKwireless has become the latest big name to build something around the Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller, building it into the heart of its new RAK11300 WisDuo LPWAN LoRa module — and, by extension, the RAK11310 WisBlock module.

Launched earlier this year, the RP2040 is Raspberry Pi's first in-house silicon and at the time of writing its only microcontroller. Featuring a dual-core Arm Cortex-M0+ processor and 264kB of static RAM, a key feature of the chip is a set of programmable input/output (PIO) blocks — offering impressive flexibility which belies its $1 retail price.

It's an offering which has clearly tempted RAKwireless. Its latest LPWAN module, the RAK11300 WisDuo, which was brought to our attention by CNX Software, uses an RP2040 as its internal microcontroller — pairing it with an SX1262 LoRA transceiver for low-power long-range wireless communication.

The RAK11300 module then its at the heart of the company's RAK11310, which pops the surface-mount module onto a carrier board designed for the company's WisBlock ecosystem as a WisBlock Core. Designed to drop in to the company's existing WisBlock Base Board, the RAK11310 can be combined with up to four WisBlock sensor modules and one WisBlock IO module — and the company promises that Wi-Fi is easy enough to add by pairing it with a RAK2305 WisBlock communications module.

Both the RAK11300 and the RAK11310 are now available from RAKwireless, priced at $6.95 and $9.95 respectively. An ultra-compact variant of the WisBlock Base Board, which only supports two modules, is also available for $8.99, along with a range of new sensor modules.