For an extra $1 now you can get integrated WiFi (and Bluetooth but
there isn't any BT software support yet) in the form of the $5 Pi
Pico W, so that's one route to talking to an IP network for IoT or
something like this.
A neat thing about the Pico is that you can do hard real-time
interface protocols using its PIO (Programmable I/O) channels and DMA
and still implement the whole thing in MicroPython.
You had me all enthusiastic there until I got to the word "MicroPython" :-(
I'm going to stay with my patch panel!
Regards,
Peter Coghlan.