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Arduino Uno WiFi Rev 2 Features I noticed

Arduino Uno WiFi Rev 2

Arduino announced several new products at the 2018 Bay Area Maker Faire. One of those products is the Uno WiFi Rev 2. (Check out this post for an introduction to the MKR Vidor 4000, an FPGA-based board. You can read their official announcement here. This new Uno board represents a significant upgrade for the 8-bit family of Arduino boards. However, I do have a few reservations.

Arduino Uno WiFi Rev 2

Starting off, I am not happy with the name. It is too long. For that reason, I am going to keep using the full name in this post to demonstrate why I don’t like it. Another reason I’m grumpy it that new microprocessor makes it incompatible with 328p code. That said,  sketches (and libraries) using only the Arduino library will (likely) work fine. Anything that uses registers, like direct port manipulation, will have issues. Just like moving to any other architecture supported by the IDE. However, because it has the name “Uno,” many users will be tripped up by incompatibilities. 

Keeping the name “Uno” was only there for marketing reasons. The form factor is the traditional Arduino Uno style. Which begs the question, can we retire that massive USB connector yet? 

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Arduino

Arduino Comparison Chart

When getting started with the Arduino, the shear number of board options can be intimidating. While the variety is a great option, it can be daunting to a new user. Many people are afraid of selecting the wrong board, or their budget doesn’t allow for buying multiple boards. Just looking at the “official” boards listed on the Arduino.cc site, there are 14+ different Arduino board types to consider. Then there are a variety of 3rd-party boards with their own uniqueness.

This publicly editable Arduino Comparison Table is a one-stop place to compare key features of Arduino boards, such as Input Voltage, I/O Pins Available, and Connectivity options. Feel free to update information, make changes, or add new boards.

Visit the Google Docs Spreadsheet to use filters and sort by the various parameters.

[View Full Table]

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Arduino

Spotting Arduino Clones

Arduino Clone Board

Open Source Hardware (OSH) means not only releasing devices, but all of the documentation associated with them. For some projects, this may include the actual CAD files used to produce the device. For example, the Arduino team produces not only schematics but the Eagle PCB CAD files for each of their boards. The great thing about such disclosure is that one can easily tweak the existing design for their own purposes. The downside is that nearly anyone can submit the exact same files to their own production house and have immediate clones.

Flickr changed their API, so the callouts are gone…. Sorry about that. -James

Even when some people choose to do this, as have some eBay (and now Amazon) sellers, differences crop up from “real” boards and the clones (aka “fakes”). Click on the above photo for a Flickr-based “spot the differences” game!

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Arduino

Arduino UNO SMD Amnesia

MRI Amnesia

On the Janurary 15, 2011 edition of Adafruit’s “Ask An Engineer” live video chat, I heard LadyAda mention something about “Arduino Amnesia.”  After investing the situation a little further, it turns out there are some Issues with the new Arduino UNO Smd edition.

A bug in the new bootloader can be triggered on power-cycle causing the SMD version of the board to not load the previously stored sketch.  The good news is there is already a fix for the bug.  Either return the board to your Official Distributor or use a ISP to program the new bootloader.

Issues (if I could even use that word) like this makes Open Source Hardware fun!

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