Top 10 Maker Boards for the Holiday Season

2016-12-06 | By Maker.io Staff

The holiday season is upon us and we have our top 10 boards to get you through the season.

1. Raspberry Pi 3

Image of Raspberry Pi 3 Board

Figure 1: Raspberry Pi 3 Board

Raspberry Pi 3 is a 64-bit 1.2GHz quad-core ARM-Cortex A53 with 1GB of RAM Linux computer. With built-in WiFi and Bluetooth capabilities it is the perfect platform to get started with creating IoT projects and hacking all those unwanted Christmas gifts. If you are feeling creative then the Raspberry Pi Foundation has a great project for the holiday season, a “Santa Catcher” using a Raspberry Pi camera module and a PIR sensors you are able to catch Santa under the Xmas tree.

1.2GHz ARM Cortex-A53 Quad-Core
1GB RAM
4x USB 2.0
1080p HDMI & Composite video output
10/100 Ethernet
802.11n WiFi + Bluetooth 4.0
40-pin GPIO header

2. DigiKey Metro Board

Figure 2: DigiKey Metro Development Board

The DigiKey Metro board is a pin compatible Arduino UNO R3 development board. At the heart of the board is a ATmega328 with 32KB of Flash memory and 2KB of RAM running at 16MHz. If you are new to the Arduino platform, then this board is perfect to get started with.

ATmeag328 microcontroller
Selectable 3.3V or 5V logic
6x analog inputs
R3 Shield compatible
Micro-USB connection for programming and Power
7-9V DC Input Voltage with on-board voltage regulator and polarity protection

3. Adafruit Circuit Playground

Figure 3: Adafruit Circuit Playground Development Board

If you after something fun and exciting that fits right in your pocket, then the Adafruit circuit Playground is the board for you. It comes with a whole host of awesome features such as 10 NeoPixel LEDs, capacitive touch sensing, light and temperature sensor, buzzer, 3-axis accelerometer and much more. The board is based around the ATmega32u4 microcontroller running at 3.3V and 8MHz. Go check out all the amazing projects you can create with the Circuit Playground on Maker.io Projects.

ATmega32u4 microcontroller running at 3.3V and 8MHz
Micro USB port for power and programming via the Arduino IDE
4x sensors (Temperature, Light, Motion, Sound)
3x switches (Slide, Push Buttons)
8x alligator-clip input/output pins
2-Pin LiPo connector for battery power and charging via Micro USB

4. Particle Photon

Figure 4: Particle Photon Development Board

The Particle Photon is a small and powerful Wi-Fi connected microcontroller based on the STM32 ARM Cortex M3 microcontroller and the Cypress Wi-Fi chip. The compact form factor of this board combined with the low power consumption makes it perfect for those discrete IoT projects. The Board can be programmed OTA using the Particle Cloud or through the Particle mobile application for IOS and Android.

STM32 120MHz ARM Cortex-M3 microcontroller
Cypress Wi-Fi chip 802.11/b/g/n with soft-AP setup and internal/external antenna
Programmed over the air using the Particle Cloud IDE
18 GPIO pins
Open-source hardware
RGB Status LED
Small form factor

5. SeeedStudio BeagleBone Green Wireless

Figure 5: SeeedStudio BeagleBone Green Wireless Development Board

SeeedStudio BeagleBone Green Wireless is a joint effort by BeagleBoard.org and Seeed Studio. Based on the open-source hardware design of BeagleBone Black, the newest BBGW has added two Grove connectors, making it easier to connect to the large family of Grove sensors. It is the first Wi-Fi + Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) board from BeagleBone community.

The first Wi-Fi + Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) board from BeagleBone community
Built-in 2.4 GHz TI WLinkTM8 Module with two antenna solution
On-board chip antenna
IEEE 802.11b/g/n compliant
Supports AP+STA mode of communication
Comply with Bluetooth Advanced Audio Distribution Profile (A2DP)
Supports MRAA library

6. Wio Link/Node

Figure 6: Wio Link and Wio Node Wireless Development Boards

Got the software skills but not the hardware skills? No problem. The Wio Link and Wio Node has got your covered with connecting Grove modules to the cloud using the Espressif ESP8266 Wi-Fi module. Wio Link is designed to simplify your IoT development. It is an ESP8266 based open-source Wi-Fi development board to create IoT applications by virtualizing grove plug-n-play modules to RESTful APIs with mobile APPs.

Visual Configuration using IOS or Android App
OTA (Over-The-Air) Firmware Updates
Plug-n-Play Groves Modules
802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi module
3.3V Operating Voltage
Lipo battery connector and charging circuit

7. Arduino Tian

Figure 7: Arduino Tian Development Board

Arduino TIAN unleashes the power of a small computer running Linux connected to a 32-bit microcontroller. Built-upon the Arduino Yun the Arduino Tian is based on the Atheros AR9342 connected to an Atmel Cortex® M0+ 32-bit microcontroller including 4GB eMMC Flash storage. The Tian also features the new Arduino OS, which is a JavaScript browser based OS allowing you to program your Arduino Tian from anywhere.

Atheros AR9342 560MHz MIPS Processor with an Atmel SAMD21 Cortex-M0+ microcontroller
4GB eMMC Flash memory
802.11 b/g/n and Gigabit Ethernet
Bluetooth 4.0
5V Micro USB power or optional PoE module
Supports Linino and Arduino OS

8. C.H.I.P. $9 Single Board Computer

Figure 8: C.H.I.P. $9 Development Board

The Next Thing Co. successfully funded their Kickstarter campaign this summer with the release of CHIP: the world’s first $9 computer. This cheap and tiny board is meant to be an easy and affordable solution to doing anything from surfing the web to powering your next maker project. The board hosts a 1 GHz AllWinner R8 processor, 512 MB of ram, and 4 GB of storage space. It also has built in WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0. While the processing speed and ram isn’t the fastest on the market, it’s certainly great for the price and the size. You can also use the PocketCHIP to have a portable computer to send email and play games. The CHIP is supposed to have at least 1,000 apps developed upon release and is entirely open source. It seems like a good and cheap solution for projects.

WiFi b/g/n/ Built-in
1 GHz Processor
512MB of RAM
Bluetooth 4.0
4GB of eMMC Storage
Small form factor

9. Intel Edison

Figure 9: Intel Edison Module

The Intel Edison was the second instalment of maker boards from Intel. The Edison is notable due to its micro size and its powerful Intel hardware. It is particular with wearable technology and embedded IoT projects with built-in wireless capabilities.

Dual core intel Atom CPU at 500MHz and a 32-bit Intel Quark microcontroller at 100 MHz
40 GPIOs
1GB LPDDR3, 4 GB EMMC, and dual-band WiFi and BLE
Supporting Arduino,C/C++,Node.JS, Python, RTOS

10. Bare Conductive Touch Board

Figure 10: Bare Conductive Touch Board

Get creative this Christmas with the Bare Conductive Touch Board: a powerful prototyping tool which combines Arduino compatibility with robust capacitive touch, distance sensing, an MP3 Player, MIDI functionality and a LiPo battery charger. The Touch Board is perfect for any designer, engineer, artist, student or educator. Listen to the Touch Board’s pre-loaded audio guide to get you started right out of the box. You can create 12 touch or proximity sensors using Electric Paint or any other conductive material.