Get the dongle kit: three parts, about £17
The wake dongle is a Raspberry Pi Pico W in a case — that is the whole bill of materials. Three off-the-shelf parts, stocked by established vendors worldwide, come to about £17, $18 or €17: the board, a snap-on case, and an official power supply with the right plug for your wall. Buy them anywhere you like; our free web flasher turns the bare board into a Rooster Wake dongle in a few minutes, no account needed, and the firmware it writes is open source in the repository.
We used to plan selling pre-built kits. Parts this commodity are cheaper and faster for you to buy directly — the vendors below ship them every day at prices we could not better — so we publish the exact list instead and put our work into the flasher.
The recipe, and seven small facts before you order
Every region below is the same recipe: the board, a case that fits it, and an official 5 V supply with the right plug. The prices shown are each vendor's own, as their product pages displayed them on 31 August 2026 — treat them as indicative and trust the page you land on.
- The connector is micro-USB, not USB-C. The official supplies below have the right cable built in — just do not buy a USB-C lead expecting it to fit.
- Buy the board without headers. The pre-soldered version doesn't fit the snap-on case — and nothing in this recipe uses the pins anyway.
- Either board works; the Pico 2 W is the one to buy. It is newer at the same price, so the links point at it — but the original Pico W does the same job, and the flasher detects which board you plugged in.
- The case is optional, but recommended. The board runs fine bare; the case is what makes it something you can leave plugged in behind a desk for years.
- The case is also printable. If the snap-on case is out of stock, the exact case we designed can be 3D-printed from the open repository — two STL files that print flat, no supports.
- Wi-Fi is 2.4 GHz only, and that is fine. Every home router still broadcasts a 2.4 GHz network, and the machine being woken can be wired or on any band — the magic packet crosses your LAN either way.
- Flashing takes an ordinary micro-USB data cable from board to computer for a few minutes. One from the gadget drawer works; the power supply's own cable then lives at the wall.
United Kingdom: The Pi Hut, £17.30 the lot
- Raspberry Pi Pico 2 W — £6.70
- Snap-on enclosure for the Pico / W / 2 / 2 W — £2.90
- Official Raspberry Pi micro-USB power supply, UK plug — £7.70
Other shops for these parts
- The board is stocked at Pimoroni — take the without-headers option.
- The official micro-USB supply is stocked at Pimoroni too — pick the UK plug.
- Anywhere: the official Pico 2 page has a buy widget that finds an approved reseller for your country — select the Pico 2 W model.
United States: Adafruit, $18.20 the lot
When we checked, the bare board was out of stock at Adafruit. Don't substitute the version with pre-soldered headers — it doesn't fit the snap-on case; if the bare board still shows out of stock, the other shops below carry it.
European Union: BerryBase, €16.90 the lot
BerryBase in Germany stocks all three and ships across the EU. Their case is a clip-together acrylic housing rather than the snap-on shell above — the same rule applies, it takes the bare board only — and if you would rather be certain of the fit, print our own case from the repository instead.
- Raspberry Pi Pico 2 W — €7.50
- Clip-together acrylic case for the Pico — €1.50
- Official Raspberry Pi micro-USB power supply, EU plug — €7.90
Other shops for these parts
- The board and the official supply are stocked at Botland (the supply is here) — ships EU-wide from Poland; their Pico case is a screw-together design rather than the clip-on ones above.
- The whole UK list ships across the EU too, priced in sterling: The Pi Hut stocks the official supply in its EU-plug version alongside the board and the snap-on case.
- Anywhere: the official Pico 2 page has a buy widget that finds an approved reseller for your country — select the Pico 2 W model — and Adafruit's distributor list finds a local stockist.
Flash it in your browser, then set it up
Plug the bare board into your computer and open https://setup.roosterwake.com — the flasher and the six-step setup both run in the browser. Nothing is installed, no account is needed to flash, and the firmware going onto the board is the same open code anyone can read in the repository.
The support line is simple: the hardware is the vendor's, so returns and warranty sit with them. The firmware, the flasher and the setup are ours, free, and ours to answer for — [email protected].