The tiny Pico has some niche advantages over full-fledged Raspberry Pi boards<\/b>
\nAsk any tinkerer about their humble origins, and you\u2019ll hear a bunch of folks mention the Raspberry Pi as the primary device that attracted them to DIY projects. However, it\u2019s usually the Raspberry Pi single-board computers that get a lot of traction from hobbyists. Don\u2019t get me wrong, this popularity is well deserved, but there\u2019s another lineup of RPi devices that needs more recognition.
I\u2019m talking about the Pico microcontrollers that have been making the rounds for a couple of years. Although the RPi SBCs knock them out of the park in the performance and OS compatibility fronts, the Pico series is better for security, robotics, and automation projects \u2013 to the point where they even include some extra features you wouldn\u2019t find on mainline Raspberry Pi systems.
The Raspberry Pi Pico includes a built-in ADC <\/p>\n

Mainline RPi SBCs require an adapter board<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re a fan of Home Assistant projects, you\u2019ve probably bought a couple of sensors at some point. When you\u2019ve got a conventional Raspberry Pi SBC, you shouldn\u2019t have any issues pairing it with digital modules. Heck, that\u2019s precisely how I built my first weather station to monitor temperature, pressure, and humidity fluctuations in my surroundings. However, things stop being so smooth when you switch the digital sensors with their analog counterparts.
That\u2019s because Raspberry Pi SBCs can\u2019t read analog inputs directly, meaning you\u2019ll either have to invest in a dedicated sensor HAT or grab an Analog-to-Digital converter just to pair the board with an analog input device. Depending on your precision requirements, this can cost a few bucks and add to the overall budget of your DIY experiment.
On the other hand, the Raspberry Pi Pico microcontroller ships with a 12-bit ADC, allowing it to accept analog inputs from a variety of different modules, including photo-resistors, potentiometers, and weather-related sensors. As long as you\u2019ve got the programming expertise, you can pair it with any ol\u2019 sensor and use it for Home Assistant-powered automation projects. Heck, it can even monitor voltages up to 3.3V, making it just as effective for circuit experiments.
PIO state machines are a lot simpler to use when you\u2019ve got Pico boards <\/p>\n

The lower OS overhead is quite handy, too<\/p>\n

Technically, the mainline RPi boards didn\u2019t feature Programmable I\/O blocks until the release of the Raspberry Pi 5. But even then, the Raspberry Pi 5 features the RP1 (not to be confused with the first SBC from the uber-popular family) I\/O controller that uses PIOLib to provide PIO capabilities. Unfortunately, documentation on it is really sparse, making it a lot harder to implement in projects.
In contrast, the original Raspberry Pi Pico includes 8 PIO state machines split across 2 blocks, and you can program them to connect to sensors, servos, displays, and everything between. The Pico 2 ups this number to 12 state machines scattered across 3 blocks, so you can interface even more peripherals with the microcontroller. Better yet, the PIO state machines work independently of the CPU, and since the microcontroller houses the heavily-documented chip RP2040, you can use them to build everything from custom gamepads to matrix displays.
Not to mention, you also have to deal with the extra overhead caused by the underlying operating system on a Raspberry Pi SBC, which can be a deal-breaker for projects where you need minimal latency. Meanwhile, Raspberry Pi Pico lets you program the GPIO pins directly, and MicroPython libraries are the only thing you need to keep in mind when creating projects with it. Better yet, you can even write flash code onto your Pico board from ESPHome, Arduino IDE, or even the Thonny app from another Raspberry Pi SBC.
The Pico wins on the pricing front <\/p>\n

It also has a smaller footprint and siphons less power<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s say you want to build a circuit project that requires you to solder a bunch of sensors to the Raspberry Pi board. With how expensive Raspberry Pi SBCs have become lately, you\u2019ll have to contend with the fact that you probably won\u2019t be able to reuse this system for other projects. Worse still, if your DIY experiments involve a lot of trial-and-error, you could end up bricking your tinkering companion.
Meanwhile, the Raspberry Pi Pico units cost as low as $4 for the original version and $5 for the second iteration \u2013 and that\u2019s a lot cheaper than the overly inflated price tags of mainline SBCs. So, you can buy a couple of these boards and use them in your experiments without worrying about wasting $50+ on a botched experiment. The small size of the Pico also helps for projects where you need a minimal footprint, and since these microcontrollers consume less than 1W of energy, you can throw in any old cable instead of investing in expensive charging bricks.
But you can still use your old RPi SBC on Pico-centric projects<\/p>\n

With the Pico series being microcontrollers, the mainline Raspberry Pi boards are far more versatile than their cheaper cousins. In fact, you can use them for hundreds of projects that are typically associated with Pico units, and I\u2019d even recommend going down the SBC route when you\u2019re a beginner. But for DIY enthusiasts with some experience in advanced projects, you shouldn\u2019t ignore the perks of Pico boards when putting together complex circuit designs and sensor-based automations.<\/p>\n