Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. The microcontroller on the Arduino board is programmed using the Arduino programming language (based on Wiring and C) and the Arduino development environment (based on Processing). This combination of tools have made it a very easy to use platform for all kinds of experimenters to create many kinds of project hacks and even commercial products. Why the Arduino Won and Why It’s Here to Stay article gives you idea why the platform is so popular. Arduino and it’s tool-set started with 8-bit Atmel microcontrollers, but nowdays the tools can also be used to program also ARM based microcontrollers.
Every now and then different sources show another “Arduino-like platform”. Here are pointers to some most interesting looking new Arduino platforms (look interesting but I have not had change to personally test any of them):
EDN magazine article Coin-sized Arduino-compatible computer with Bluetooth LE wirelessly connects to smartphones, tablets tells that about the world’s first ‘Arduino’ compatible open-source micro-computer that can communicate wirelessly with any Bluetooth® v4.0 compatible smartphone or tablet. This ‘RFduino’ is based on nRF51822′s powerful on-board 32-bit ARM Cortex M0-based processor. Open Source RF claims that the overriding focus of the RFduino is on building new wireless applications. The RFduino can be powered by anything from household outlets down to a regular CR2032 coin cell (watch) battery. The RFduino 7 GPIO lines all support, Digital IO, Analog ADC, SPI, I2C, UART and PWM. The RFduino is similar to the Arduino UNO or DUE, except the RFduino is a fraction of the cost and size, in addition has wireless smartphone connectivity built-in! There are several open-source RFduino and iPhone apps which are free to use, extend, and share.
The JeeNode is a small wireless board with an 8-bit Atmel RISC microprocessor. JeeNodes are compatible with the Arduino platform and can be programmed under Windows, Mac OS X, or Linux using sketches created with the Arduino IDE. Kits include the ISM-band 868 MHz radio module as used in Europe for short range wireless communications.
The PICnDuino Review page tells about PICnDuino board. The PICnDuino is an Open Source dual microcontroller development platform built into a tiny direct to USB device. It is compatible with both Arduino (Atmega 328P) and Amicus18 (PIC18F25K20). The PICnDuino provides a fantastic opportunity to learn two programming languages in one device (Arduino which is C and Amicus18 which is Basic). You just plug it in to USB and start coding. The board has LEDss onboard and had bread-board friendly format.
CuteUino: Only use the parts of the Arduino that you need for each project article tells of a new small version of the Arduino that has a fitting within the outline of an SD card. In this design the Arduino platform is broken it up into several modules (that you can stack on top of each other) so you can choose only the components that you need for the project. For more details check Prototyping The CuteUino web page.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Arduino and Genuino 101 Available in the Arduino Stores
https://blog.arduino.cc/2015/12/17/arduino-and-genuino-101-available-in-the-arduino-stores/
We’re very excited to announce that starting today Arduino 101* (USA only) and Genuino 101 (Outside USA) made in collaboration with Intel, are available for purchase exclusively on the Arduino Stores at the price of $30/€28,65 (+ tax).
Arduino 101 and Genuino 101 are the ideal successor of the Uno featuring a 32-bit Intel® Quark™ microcontroller for minimal power consumption, 384 kB of flash memory, 80 kB of SRAM (24 kB available for sketches), an integrated DSP sensor hub, Bluetooth Low Energy radio, and 6-axis combo sensor with accelerometer and gyroscope. You’ll be able to create projects with great features like recognising gestures and controlling your phone over Bluetooth connectivity — all without needing additional hardware.
Tomi Engdahl says:
¼-size Arduino board packs full-size punch + on-board LiPo charge/mgmt
http://www.edn.com/electronics-products/electronic-product-reviews/arduino–embedded-engineering-for-all/4438753/-size-Arduino-board-packs-full-size-punt—on-board-LiPo-charge-mgmt?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20151221&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20151221&elq=f16edb6937274a16b479901f7f319cdb&elqCampaignId=26236&elqaid=29978&elqat=1&elqTrackId=aee5fddc2cec47e0b288780975a42656
The Qduino Mini embedded processor board which made its debut on Kickstarter earlier this week will make it easier than ever for Arduino enthusiasts to design and build compact, battery-powered projects. Despite its compact 1in x 1.5in form factor, the board packs all the punch of its full-sized counterparts and throws in a turnkey battery fuel gauge and charger just for grins.
Even if I didn’t know Quin Etnyre, the Qduino’s inventor and namesake, I’d still be excited to see this nifty little Arduino board launching on Kickstarter because its compact size and integrated support for LiPo battery charging and management fills an important niche in the Arduino ecosystem.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/qtechknow/qduino-mini-arduino-compatible-battery-charger-and
Tomi Engdahl says:
Arduino 32-bit board offers WiFi connectivity
http://www.edn.com/electronics-products/other/4441038/Arduino-32-bit-board-offers-WiFi-connectivity?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_productsandtools_20151221&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_productsandtools_20151221&elq=2fda10a4941644a88432da2492174a11&elqCampaignId=26260&elqaid=30003&elqat=1&elqTrackId=0b7cd96f2ab947939d75c9abaf1b348e
With built-in WiFi capability, the MKR1000 development board from Arduino provides a simple way to add wireless connectivity to IoT battery-powered projects. The Arduino MKR1000, also known as the Genuino MKR1000 outside the U.S., combines the functionality of the Arduino Zero and the Arduino WiFi Shield in a tiny form factor.
The new board is powered by an Atmel ATSAMW25 SmartConnect module, which comprises a SAMD21 32-bit ARM Cortex-M0+ MCU, an ATWINC1500 2.4-GHz IEEE 802.11 b/g/n WiFi system-on-chip, and an ATECC508 CryptoAuthentication IC. It also furnishes a single 1×1 stream PCB antenna.
The Arduino MKR1000 runs on a 3.7-V, 700-mAh (minimum) lithium polymer battery or an external 5-V power supply.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Wi-Fi equipped 32-bit Arduino board streamlines cloud-powered embedded app development
http://www.edn.com/electronics-products/electronic-product-reviews/reader-s-choice-2015/4438571/Wi-Fi-equipped-32-bit-Arduino-Board-streamlines-cloud-powered-embedded-app-development?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20151222&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20151222&elq=4a999721423f4c698e056540336dbe94&elqCampaignId=26239&elqaid=29981&elqat=1&elqTrackId=738c177c4208482db11210b4ff869a7e
Digilent’s chipKIT WiFire board is an awesome little beastie. Powered by Microchip’s latest 32-bit 200 MHz MCU, the Wi-Fi equipped Arduino-compatible platform has been paired with Imagination Technologies’ Flow Cloud service development tools in an effort to make creating cloud-powered embedded applications practical for the average developer. They may well succeed at this not-so-simple task which has eluded several other player in the IoT market.
A smoother on-ramp to the IoT
Although a lot of “experts” have promised that the IoT’s ability to connect low-cost embedded systems to powerful cloud-based services is a “game-changer”, or “(insert today’s hot buzzword)” for smart lighting and other distributed systems, I’ve found there’s usually a wide gap between those promises and a working system. That gap is strewn with obstacles that can be as simple as hardware isn’t up to the task, as frustrating as poorly-integrated design tools, or as confusing as a complex, poorly-documented set of digital rituals an embedded system must follow to access a cloud-based service. My brief road test of the WiFire board and the cloud-app developer resources from Imagination Technologies suggests that it’s well-equipped to avoid the hazards lurking on beside the on-ramp to the IoT which can overtake an unwary embedded system.
Sponsor video, mouseover for sound
WiFire is a pin-compatible variant of an Arduino board which replaces the standard 8-bit AVR MCU with Microchip’s 200 MHz, 32-bit PIC32MZ MCU, and adds an on-board 802.11b/g Wi-Fi module (also from Microchip).
Onward, into the cloud!
WiFire’s primary mission is to serve as a development platform for embedded IoT applications. Microchip-powered chipKITs have been used as a remote node development platform by several cloud services including Exocite, OctoBlue, UbiDots, and Imagination Technologies’ Flow Cloud service. Microchip and ChipKit have made things even easier by partnering with Imagination Tech to make its FlowCloud services and IoT application development technology available on the WiFire platform.
Getting started is pretty straightforward, you can point the PC, Mac or Linux box you’re using to write your code to the FlowCloud Developer site http://flow.imgtec.com/developers or directly download the FlowCloud “Getting Started” app for either an iOS or Android platform. The app enables a mobile device to use its Wi-Fi radio to connect with the WiFire development board and set up the remainder of its configuration parameters.
From there, you use the FlowCloud SDK to create your cloud application from FlowCloud’s modular infrastructure capabilities and underlying services. At present, the available services include:
• Device and user management
• Asynchronous messaging
• Data storage
• Event logging
• International E-wallet payments
• Optional FlowRadio and music services
• A customizable website
The cloud services infrastructure also provides secure asynchronous messaging and end-to-end connection establishment.
The chipKIT WiFire is priced at $79 (U.S.), and can be ordered today from Digilent at http://www.digilentinc.com/wifire.
Users can get started with FlowCloud for the chipKIT WiFire at http://flow.imgtec.com/wifire
Tomi Engdahl says:
Federico Musto of Arduino SRL Shows Us New Products and New Directions
http://hackaday.com/2016/01/04/new-products-and-new-directions-an-interview-with-federico-musto-of-arduino-srl/
The big story from our meeting, that [Federico] actually hinted at before, is the release of the Uno WiFi. How many projects have you seen on Hackaday that are based on an Arduino Uno with an ESP8266 WiFi module plugged into it? A bazillion. The Uno and ESP8266 are like the peanut butter and jelly of the last few years’ hacker zeitgeist.
The Uno WiFi, then, is the Goober Grape (not an endorsement, you consume this stuff at your own risk). Less poetically put, Arduino has soldered the ESP8266 onto the Arduino Uno for you: no fiddling around with modules and pin-headers necessary. It’s not a ground-breaking innovation, but this is the kind of smart, community-led development that we like to see. You wanted cheap and easy WiFi on your Arduino? You got it.
Indeed, since the Arduino Yun came out, a lot of hackers were using it as a simple way to get their Arduino onto a wireless network: IoT and all that. When the ESP8266 hit the scene, many thought that the Yun looked dead in the water: with the ESP chip, you could get WiFi on your Arduino for half the price.
With the addition of the Uno WiFi, both the simple IoT devices and the more demanding applications can stay within the Arduino family. Go with the Uno WiFi if you want something networked but simple that the standard AVR ATmega328 processor can handle easily. If you actually need the extra computational power and flexibility of an embedded Linux distribution in addition to the ATmega, go for the Yun.
The Arduino Tian is a neat new board, in our opinion. It’s got an integrated MIPS processor with 2.4 and 5GHz WiFi on board, as well as being able to do Bluetooth and Bluetooth LE. It runs faster than the Yun by a bit
We can’t decide if the Tian (or the Yun, for that matter) is a microcontroller with a Linux computer tacked on, or a Linux computer with a microcontroller to handle GPIO.
The Tian has only been available for about a month now.
The Yun, the Tian, and the China-only Lei boards all feature an OpenWRT-based Linux distribution onboard as well as WiFi connectivity. They also managed to get the entire GCC compilation chain compiling natively on the MIPS cores. It shouldn’t be too much more work to get a cross-compiler for the microcontroller up and running on the Arduino’s Linux side.
Arduino UNO WiFi
http://labs.arduino.org/Arduino+UNO+WiFi
The Arduino Uno WiFi is the new Arduino Uno with the WiFi module!
The board is based on the ATmega328 (datasheet) and it has integrated the ESP8266 WiFi Module (datasheet).
It has 14 digital input/output pins (of which 6 can be used as PWM outputs), 6 analog inputs, a 16 MHz ceramic resonator, a USB connection, a power jack, an ICSP header, and a reset button. It contains everything needed to support the microcontroller; simply connect it to a computer with a USB cable or power it with a AC-to-DC adapter or battery to get started.
The ESP8266 WiFi Module is a self contained SOC with integrated TCP/IP protocol stack that can give access to your WiFi network.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Arduino UNO clone gallery
An image gallery of arduino UNO clones found on the web
https://hackaday.io/project/9149-arduino-uno-clone-gallery
Tomi Engdahl says:
At last! A SIL-Duino!
http://hackaday.com/2016/03/05/at-last-a-sil-duino/
There are some standard components that have been so continuously refined as to have become if not perfect then about as good as they’re going to get. Take the Arduino Uno for instance, and compare it with its ancestor from a decade ago. They are ostensibly the same board and they are compatible with each other, yet the Uno and its modern clones have more processing power, memory and storage, a USB interface rather than serial, and a host of small component changes to make them better and cheaper.
You’d think that just another Arduino clone couldn’t bring much to the table then.
Arduino that mounts vertically on a single row of pins. Why might you find that attractive, you ask? A SIL vertical Arduino takes up a lot less breadboard space than one of the existing DIL Arduinos.
Vertically mounted Arduino for Breadboard
https://hackaday.io/project/9983-vertically-mounted-arduino-for-breadboard
This is an Arduino-compatible, vertically-mountable microcontroller board made entirely of TH components
Tomi Engdahl says:
FISHINO: Arduino becomes wireless
http://www.open-electronics.org/fishino-arduino-become-wireless/
Technical specs
Fully compatible with Arduino UNO
WiFi module on board, can be uses in station mode, access point mode or both
MicroSD slot on board
RTC (Real Time Controller) with backup lithium battery on board
Largely increased current on 3.3V supply section
A new connector added to solve the well known Arduino’s problem of incompatibility with breadboards
Atmega328P controller
This section is almost identical of original onee; same controller, only in SMD format because of board’s space constraints, with the usual 16 MHz crystal, the 2 capacitors around it, and some decoupling capacitors on supply pins.
we added a small 10 pins connector in parallel to the standard one, but slightly shifted, to align it to 2.54 mm standard pitch. This allows to use a standard breadboard as a shield, overcoming the well known Arduino’s problem, without breaking compatibility with existing shields.
SPI interface – Level shifters
Almost all Fishino‘s circuits operates with a 5 volt supply and signals, but MicroSD cards and the WiFi module do on 3.3 volt e, worse, they’re not 5v-tolerant.
So, to follow technical specs we decided to insert some level-shifting circuits.
Those are built with simple resistor dividers, in 5V to 3.3V direction; in the opposite direction we trust on high 3.3v ttl level to be inside the high 5v ttl level range
MicroSD card interface
WiFi module
If atmega controller can be regarded as Fishino‘s brain, the WiFi module is indeed it’s door to external world, and it’s the main reason of board’s development.
WiFi module embedding in Fishino at reasonable price has been possible thanks to new WiFi modules with ESP8266 controller.
Fishino: let’s look inside the features
http://www.open-electronics.org/fishino-lets-look-inside-the-features/
In the last post we have presented the Fishino UNO board, compatible with Arduino UNO but offering WiFi connectivity, a microSD slot and a built-in RTC.
In this second post we begin describing the available software libraries, explaining the main functions with some simple examples of use.
Tomi Engdahl says:
What’s Tiny, Has Eight Legs, and Acts Like an Arduino?
http://hackaday.com/2016/03/27/whats-tiny-has-eight-legs-and-acts-like-an-arduino/
DIL-Duino, a minuscule form factor Arduino in an 8-pin DIP format.
Built with an ATtiny85, the board has an area of just under 75 square millimeters (less than 8 mm x 10 mm). If you add the USB port, it still comes in at just over 144 square millimeters. [Daniel] found other small Arduino boards like the Olimexino-85s and the Nanite are not as small as his design.
DIL-Duino
A complete Arduino environment in a DIL-8 form factor based on the DigiSpark Hardware
https://hackaday.io/project/8301-dil-duino
Tomi Engdahl says:
What is Linduino?
http://www.linear.com/solutions/linduino
Linduino is Linear Technology’s Arduino compatible system for developing and distributing firmware libraries and example code for Linear Technology’s integrated circuits. The code is designed to be highly portable to other microcontroller platforms, and is written in C using as few processor specific functions as possible.
An LTM2884 USB Isolator breaks the ground connection to the PC, allowing projects to operate at a different ground potential than the computer that is controlling it.
http://www.linear.com/demo/?demo_board=2026&part_number=&category_id=0&companion_board=&software_id=
Tomi Engdahl says:
STMicro hooks up with Arduino to serve Maker community
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/about-embedded/4442099/STMicro-hooks-up-with-Arduino-to-serve-Maker-community?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160530&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160530&elqTrackId=e4c77d3c374d49c889a3c91e90314995&elq=165449aa0b4948fdae4d6e4d2cf6dfa1&elqaid=32434&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=28340
Once dismissed as dilatants, the Makers of the world are starting to gather serious interest from microprocessor vendors. Vendors have created their own modular development boards, like mbed and BeagleBone, with an eye toward attracting Makers as well as the traditional professional market. But vendor interest in Arduino has been limited (save Atmel, of course) to leveraging the shield ecosystem by making sockets on their development boards pin compatible. Now, ST Microelectronics has gone the whole way by creating an STM32 development board that is a full-fledged member of the Arduino family.
Arduino and STMicro call their new blended family STAR (for ST and Arduino), and its first member is the STM32F469-based STAR Otto baseboard. The board has Arduino Uno, Due, and Mega connectivity as well as a connector that provides a MIPI DSI display interface. So all of the Arduino shields are compatible with Otto. Further, STMicro has announced it will be creating new shields in the coming months for DSI display, NFC reading, and sensors. STMicro Nucleo expansion boards for environmental sensing and proximity detection have also been ported over to work with Otto.
But this is not just another development board that accepts Arduino shields. This is an Arduino. It just uses a 32-bit ARM Cortex-M rather than an 8-bit AVR. Otto has the full Arduino legacy IDE and online Arduino Studio IDE support, so all the Arduino libraries are available for developers.
What Otto brings to the Maker party is power. It is a full 180-MHz, 32-bit processor with 2M of Flash, 384k of SRAM, and 16M of SDRAM, as well as a microSD slot for further expansion. The module also has 802.11 b/g/n 2.4 GHz WiFi built in, two MEMS microphones, and camera, speaker, and headphone connectors.
ST, Arduino team to expand maker access
http://www.edn.com/electronics-products/other/4442119/ST–Arduino-team-to-expand-maker-access?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_productsandtools_20160530&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_productsandtools_20160530&elqTrackId=10d88632d11a4a3b8fcd2927cd945cf4&elq=dc461471b4cb4115aec74eebcbab1e07&elqaid=32432&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=28338
STMicroelectronics and Arduino have forged an agreement that brings STM32 MCUs and a wide array of ST sensors and other components to the Arduino maker community. The first product of the joint STAR (ST and Arduino) program is the STM32F469-based STAR Otto baseboard.
The STM32F469 32-bit ARM Cortex-M microcontroller includes the Chrom-ART graphics accelerator and MIPI DSI display interface, along with an open-source software graphics library. In addition to the MCU’s 2-Mbyte flash memory and 384-kbyte SRAM, the board packs 16 Mbytes of SDRAM, 128 kbytes of EEPROM, and a microSD slot.
An integrated WiFi 802.11 2.4-GHz link allows wireless communication, complemented by a USB host interface.