u/BroadFriendship2718

We pulled MCU choices from a sample of 662 maker projects built spring 2026. ESP32 is 60%, Pi Pico is 0.6%. What are we missing?

I run an AI hardware tool and pulled the data off our platform. A sample of 662 original projects from 367 independent makers, over eight weeks. We extracted the MCU from each project's description (regex shown in the post, aggregates linked) because the column was biased by a UI default.

Headline numbers for user-built projects:

ESP family: 60%
Arduino AVR (mostly Nano): 22%
Raspberry Pi (Linux): 5%
Pi Pico / RP2040: 0.6%
Other (STM32, PIC, Teensy, nRF): 0.5%

The Pi Pico number is what got me. Four projects out of 662. Five years of Adafruit and Pimoroni promotion and it's not the connected-MCU default. ESP32 is. Curious what people here think is keeping the Pico down. Toolchain? Wi-Fi was late? Library coverage? Pricing? Something else?

Happy to share the full writeup with methodology and the aggregate spreadsheet in a comment if anyone wants it.

reddit.com

u/BroadFriendship2718 — 2 days ago

▲ 332 r/seniordogs+1 crossposts

Pie has been slowing down lately. At 14, I worry every day - is he in pain? Is today a bad day or just a lazy morning? I couldn’t find a good affordable solution, so I built one myself. It’s a small WiFi sensor on his collar that tracks his movement patterns and sends me alerts. Now I can actually see the data instead of just guessing. Happy to share how I built it if anyone’s interested

And know i can call him Pie-Bernard since he reminds me of St. Bernard :-)

u/BroadFriendship2718 — 15 days ago