Raspberry Pi is back with a new piece of ultra-affordable hardware that could quietly become a staple in future wireless products. It’s called the Raspberry Pi Radio Module 2, and at just $4, it packs both Wi-Fi 4 and Bluetooth 5.2 into a compact module built specifically for integration with the company’s RP2040 and RP2350 microcontrollers.
This tiny board is more than just a breakout for wireless chips. Raspberry Pi designed it to be a turnkey solution for OEMs and hardware developers, giving them a pre-certified path to wireless connectivity without the cost and complexity of going through radio compliance testing.
At the heart of the module is the Infineon CYW43439 combo chip, the same radio found in the Pico W and Pico 2 W. It supports single-band 2.4GHz Wi-Fi and both Bluetooth Classic and BLE, all running off a shared internal antenna. While that might sound like old news, what makes Radio Module 2 a standout is everything around that chip.
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The board includes a custom Raspberry Pi-designed inverted-F antenna, a low-pin-count gSPI interface, and castellated edge pads that make it easy to solder directly onto another board. It’s built for seamless integration into mass-produced devices. It even tosses in three usable GPIO lines that developers can repurpose, something not possible on the more locked-down Pico W.
Power consumption is low, too. In power-save mode, the board sips just 1.19mA. It draws 43mA while receiving and 271mA during transmit operations at 16dBm. That kind of efficiency makes it ideal for battery-powered devices where every milliamp counts.
From a design perspective, Radio Module 2 measures just 16.5mm x 14.5mm x 2.55mm. It can be powered from a 3.0V to 4.8V input, and supports both 1.8V and 3.3V I/O levels. The physical footprint and castellated pins make it easy to slap onto a custom PCB, while still keeping the BOM cost brutally low.
One thing worth noting is that Radio Module 2 is strictly for Raspberry Pi microcontrollers. It’s not a generic wireless module for ESP32 or STM32 boards. The firmware is precompiled and loaded at boot over a PIO-based gSPI interface, something unique to Raspberry Pi’s architecture. If you’re not using the Pico SDK, you’re out of luck.
That said, if you’re already building with RP2040 or RP2350, this is the wireless solution you’ve been waiting for. It brings full modular certification for the US, UK, EU, and Canada, meaning developers don’t have to worry about expensive RF testing to get a product to market. It’s just plug, code, and ship.
Raspberry Pi also confirmed that this module has a long production life ahead, with support planned through January 2036. For anyone designing a connected product today, that kind of runway matters.
