Waveshare RP2040-LoRa

Overview

The Waveshare RP2040-LoRa is a compact castellated module that combines the Raspberry Pi RP2040 dual-core microcontroller with a Semtech SX1262 LoRa transceiver for long-range wireless communication. Available in two frequency variants -- LF (410-525MHz) for Europe and Asia, and HF (850-930MHz) for North America, Europe, and Oceania -- the module delivers up to 22dBm transmit power with -148dBm receive sensitivity, enabling kilometer-range communication in line-of-sight conditions.

At just 21 x 41mm with castellated edge pads, the RP2040-LoRa is designed for direct soldering onto carrier boards, making it ideal for embedding into custom IoT sensor nodes, environmental monitoring stations, and LoRaWAN end devices. The onboard IPEX antenna connector accepts external antennas (a 2dB antenna and SMA adapter cable are included), and the 8-pin FPC connector provides a convenient breakout for USB programming via an optional USB-C adapter board.

The module exposes 20 GPIO pins with SPI, I2C, and UART interfaces, 4 ADC channels, and 16 PWM channels. The SX1262 communicates with the RP2040 over SPI and supports LoRa, FSK, and GFSK modulation with packets up to 256 bytes. With receive current consumption of just 5.3mA, the module is well-suited for battery-powered remote sensor deployments. Development is supported through C/C++ (Pico SDK), MicroPython, and Arduino, with example code available for LoRa ping-pong testing and LoRaWAN OTAA temperature sensing.