Microduino
The Microduino is a compact board measuring 1 x 1,1" or 25,40 x 27,9 mm only.
However, it uses the same ATmega328P as the Arduino Uno, and thus is fully featured with I²C, SPI, USB, ADC or PWM. It also features a reset button but not the traditional LED on pin 13. To save space, the programmer is hosted a separate board, with a FDTI chip on the same compact dimension. All the boards are stackable. Microduino, the modern way |
On the performance edition, Microduino offers more powerful boards:
Twice the flash, same size |
The IDE or integrated development environment is a plug-in for Arduino 1.0.x and thus platform-agnostic. It runs on either Windows, Mac OS X or Linux. However, it is not compatible with the Arduino 1.5.x version.
Thanks to its compatibility with the Arduino IDE, it is also fully supported by embedXcode, the template for embedded computing on Xcode. |
Shields
The Microduino doesn't come alone: it comes with nothing less than 17 extension boards and modules. The internet of things is well represented with nRF24, Bluetooth BLE, WiFi and Ethernet shields.
Staking the boards on is easy, although a tool is recommended when unstacking them, to avoid the pins from being bent. The official website presents a full page of the extension boards and modules. |
A Whole Eco-System
I really like the idea of Microduino with a whole eco-system of 2 core boards and many shields available from Day 1!
Prices are very affordable: the standard ATmega328P-based board goes for USD8, the more powerful ATmega644PA-based for USD10 and the programer for USD12. Thanks to the aggressive pricing, instead of picking sensors and spending endless hours on soldering and cabling, just pick the right extension boards you need for a project and stack them for a compact and safe final result. For legacy Arduino shields, there is a specific extension boards pin-compatible with the Arduino Uno board. |
Tutorials
Microduino has enriched the wiki with a whole new section dedicated to training:
The code for the tutorials is available at this GitHub repository. |
Pros
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Cons
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Wrap-Up
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