Is there a reason to use a RPI Pico W instead of ESP32

It’s not relevant to ESPHome (I think), but RPI’s can be a good choice for a project that needs regular Bluetooth (as opposed to BLE).

I have a pi zero that runs Monitor.

So if you were thinking about having a esp for a dedicated ESPHome BLE scanner, you may reconsider it in favour of a rpi Monitor node.

I admittedly don’t know much about the various pi mini type variants as I’m generally happy in esp land.