Raspberry PI PICO W- Bluetooth (in BETA) released in 1.5 version of SDK

[djsb]

I got a notification this morning that version 1.5 of the SDK kit has been released. Bluetooth support is included, but it's at present in BETA.
Hopefully soon there will be support in micropython. Maybe this thread can contain a log of any experience with the Bluetooth functionality. What do you all think?

[SiliconWizard]

I thought BT was not usable on the PICO W due to the required bus of the RF SoC used not being connected to the RP2040? Or did I not remember right?

[dobsonr741]

Works, per the release note: https://www.cnx-software.com/2023/02/11/raspberry-pi-pico-w-bluetooth-le-support

Lack of commercial license seems to be a minor bump on the road.

[tszaboo]

They released the final version yesterday.
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/new-functionality-bluetooth-for-pico-w/
One thing caught my eye in the press release:
"Routing both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth traffic over the single three-pin SPI bus between RP2040 and CYW43439 has been a substantial engineering challenge."
I'm wondering what that challenge was. I work regularly with wireless sensors, and I've seen people implement entire protocol stacks from scratch faster than the Pi foundation took to implement BLE, on a SoC that comes with it. Is it just the regular Infineon tax, where the MCUs from them don't work at all as advertized?