The trick? On some Nano boards and clones, the bootloader is set to use a large block of reserved memory, but Optiboot only requires a fraction of that reserved memory.

The Raspberry Pi Pico is both faster and cheaper than the Arduino Nano, but the nano has better resources and community.

The Arduino Nano uses a bootloader for handling programming the MCU, which requires the USB to serial bridge to be disconnected from anything that could interfere with the programming.

Available to purchase for £8 or $8 depending on your location the Maker Nano RP2040, as the name suggests, features a Arduino Nano form factor and is powered by a Raspberry Pi RP2040.