Whilst macro pads are inexpensive to buy, [wd5gnr] wanted to build his own, and decided to use the Raspberry Pi Pico as the controller.
He selected QMK for the firmware, as it is well supported, mature, and has a range of features, andhis breakdown of how to set it up is excellent.
There are a couple of io boards available that are compatible with the QMK firmware, one with an RP2040 at its core and another with an ESP32, both from Mysrob, and there are many guides on setting these up as a QMK device.
However, [wd5gnr] elected to use the “simple badge” that he had lying around and just configure its firmware to act as a macro pad, which proves it is very simple to do.
