Arduino Nano

It came as a surprise when Arduino launched a whole new family of compact boards at competitive prices: Nano Every, Nano 33 IoT, Nano 33 BLE and Nano 33 BLE Sense.

Although based on different MCUs, they all share the same Arduino Nano form-factor with castellated pads and aggressive prices.

The Arduino 33 BLE was sampled by Arduino. The other boards were bought.

Hardware

The new entry board remains 8 bits and 5V-compatible.

The Nano Every runs on an ATMega4809 (20 MHz, 48 KB Flash, 6 kB RAM) and is compatible with the original Arduino Nano for USD 10.

All other boards are 32 bits and are not 5V-tolerant, hence the 33 name.

The Nano 33 IoT runs on a SAMD21G (48 MHz, 256 kB Flash, 32 kB RAM) while the ESP32 provides WiFi and BLE for USD 18.
The Nano 33 BLE runs on a Nordic nRF52840 (64 MHz, 1 MB Flash, 256 kB RAM) for USD 19.
The Nano 33 BLE Sense adds sensors to the Nano 33 BLE for USD 30.

All boards are also available with optional headers for a USD 2 extra.

Software

The IoT-capable boards use dedicated libraries.

The Nano 33 IoT relies on the WiFiNINA library for WiFi and ArduinoBLE library for BLE.
The Nano 33 BLE and Nano 33 BLE Sense both use the Arduino BLE library for BLE.

For the built-in sensors, each sensor comes with its dedicated library, along with basic examples:

The Nano 33 IoT relies on the Arduino LSM6DS3 library for the 3-axis accelerometer and gyroscope.
The Nano 33 BLE and Nano 33 BLE Sense both use the Arduino LSM9DS1 library for the 9 DOF IMU.

The Nano 33 BLE Sense also uses the Arduino LSM9DS1 library for the 9 DOF IMU, the Arduino Sound library for the digital microphone, the Arduino APDS9960 library for the combined digital proximity, ambient light, RGB and gesture sensor, the Arduino LPS22HB library for the temperature and pressure sensor, and the Arduino HTS221 library for the relative humidity sensor.

Spot the differences!
Top: Arduino Nano 33 BLE
Bottom: Arduino Nano 33 BLE Sense

Debugging

The 32-bit boards provision pad for an SWD connection. However, soldering the cables isn't very clean.

I would have preferred the standard 2x5 0.05" pad found on other boards.

A detailed step-by-step procedure is available at the Hackster.io project Arduino Nano 33 IoT Debugging.

Click to enlarge

Conclusion

The compact form-factor, the castellated pins and the competitive prices make the new Arduino Nano boards very interesting modules.

However, the examples provided remain rather basic. For example, the Nano 33 BLE Sense has no project that combines all the sensors and no related iOS or Android app. Users should refer to the Arduino project hub instead.

Pros

Wide offer
Competitive prices

Cons

Debugger connections hard to use
Basic examples

Wrap-Up

Great value