Arduino Announces New UNO R4 Boards

[GFreeman]

The revolutionary UNO R4, announced on Arduino Day, is now available on the Arduino Store! The fourth version of the iconic, beloved UNO adds a whole new dimension to the world of DIY and making revolutionized by the simple 8-bit microcontroller over a decade ago. Take your maker potential to new heights: UNO R4 has a speedy 32-bit Arm Cortex-M4 and offers a 16-fold increase in memory, as well as more connectors and connectivity options than ever - in two variants: UNO R4 Minima and UNO R4 WiFi.

Both variants allow you to start making or easily upgrade UNO R3-based projects with more computational power, memory, and speed than previous versions - courtesy of the RA4M1 microcontroller by Renesas - while maintaining the same form factor and 5 V operating voltage.



What's in the new UNO?

• More memory and faster clock: A 16x increase in memory and 3x the clock speed mean the UNO R4 can perform more precise calculations and handle more complex and sophisticated projects than ever.
• New built-in peripherals: Among several exciting new peripherals, you get a 12-bit DAC, CAN BUS, OP AMP, and SWD port - each one expanding your maker potential, allowing you to easily tackle increasingly advanced projects.
• A USB-C Connector: Embracing the smaller, more powerful, and robust cable standard!
• An HID device: This feature makes interactive projects a million times cooler, allowing you to create interfaces with minimal effort and in no time.

You can get started on your next automation or audio project with the UNO R4 Minima - a top pick for first-time makers, with its combination of powerful technology and affordable price - or you can opt for the UNO R4 WiFi if you need more specific features.

Connect to your inner creativity with the UNO R4 WiFi
The UNO R4 WiFi variant is perfect for all users, from beginners to experts, wanting to explore the forefront of innovation. This full-fledged board features an ESP32-S3 coprocessor that handles Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Low Energy connectivity, so the RA4M1 microcontroller can focus on other tasks. On top of all the features in the Minima variant, it offers:

• Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, plus Cloud-compatibility: build IoT projects, create interactive dashboard and control your project remotely.
• A 12×8 LED matrix: imagine working on a creative project using animations or plotting sensor data, without any additional hardware!
• A Qwiic connector to facilitate quick prototyping: thanks to a wide variety of compatible modules that can be connected over I2C, you can easily create custom projects and expand the capabilities of your UNO R4 WiFi.
• A built-in mechanism that detects operations that might cause a crash: if it catches errors such as a division by zero, the board stops them before they can cause trouble and provides a detailed explanation on the serial monitor

"The Arduino ecosystem has evolved, over the last two decades, thanks to the powerful idea of open source and the stellar community of 30+ million makers who keep sharing, building, and improving. Every new hardware product, every new software solution has added new worlds - ready to welcome everyone. Now, the UNO R4 takes the ecosystem and the community to a new dimension of performance." - Massimo Banzi, Arduino co-founder

So, if you're just beginning your Arduino journey, the release of the UNO R4 makes it a great time to start!

Already an UNO fan? The UNO R4 makes it easy to port existing shields and projects to a whole new level, and selected contributors are already helping us update UNO R3 libraries.

A final big thank you goes to our community and early adopters, who have supported us these past few months by contributing their efforts to porting libraries.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source

 

[TumbleGeorge]

16-fold increase in memory

Yes from 2kB to 32kB. Far far behind Raspberry Pi Pico for $4.

 

[Ferrum Master]

Yes from 2kB to 32kB. Far far behind Raspberry Pi Pico for $4.

This is for schools mate... Italians incorporate Arduino studies as mandatory even for artists in higher education instances.

For your projects you pick the right tool... let it be and axe, knife, gun... Garrote.

Here too... ESP32 flavors, STM flavors the heck even old atmels and PICs are alright for simple stuff. RPI Products are not plenty enough and are pretty limited in amounts and expensive tbh, while ESP32 are like dirt now and very easy to work with.

 

[Wirko]

The Uno R4 doesn't even make its predecessor, the Uno R3, completely obsolete. The R3 is able to run on small batteries for long periods (2.7 V minimum supply voltage, and consumption can be brought down to microamperes with software tricks, supposedly - I never tried it).

Also it's a bit sad that wired communication hasn't improved - there's still the same old virtual serial port over USB.

 

[trsttte]

RPI Products are not plenty enough and are pretty limited in amounts and expensive tbh

He's talking about the rpi pico microcontroller, it's even cheaper than the arduino though more limited in some functionalities (other than memory).

Also it's a bit sad that wired communication hasn't improved - there's still the same old virtual serial port over USB.

It's the standard everything else uses, what else were you expecting?

 

[Lianna]

Quick notes after a few minutes of browsing:
+ 5V, RTC, DAC, M4, SRAM, WiFi, BLE..., 25 EUR for WiFi one;
- Arm, so fast bit banging protocols get unpredictable (cache, branches);
- default 8 mA may limit compatibility (data sheet mentions +-20 mA on some pins, but Arduino does not);
- default 48 MHz requires 15-40 mA for the chip only, low power modes available for the chip, but probably not for the board;
- most hobby-friendly chip package (for custom projects) is LQFP48 with 0.5 mm pin pitch (e), so downgrade;
- "1x CAN (pin D4, D5, external transceiver is required)" and unfortunately same pins for I2C;
- "8 kB data flash (EEPROM)" no, not the same thing, some applications lost;
...

The Uno R4 doesn't even make its predecessor, the Uno R3, completely obsolete. The R3 is able to run on small batteries for long periods (2.7 V minimum supply voltage, and consumption can be brought down to microamperes with software tricks, supposedly - I never tried it).

ATmega328P from Uno R3 works down to 2.7 V @ 10 MHz, down to 1.8 V @ 4 MHz. Works great for button cell projects, at 3 V and 1 MHz fully active under 1 mA, sleep in single digit uA range.
Shame that something with electrical characteristics like SparkFun's Artemis is not used in the R4.

Also it's a bit sad that wired communication hasn't improved - there's still the same old virtual serial port over USB.

That would not be so bad if they used at least Hi-Speed, but it's still Full-Speed only, like 32U4 or 16U2.

A built-in mechanism that detects operations that might cause a crash: if it catches errors such as a division by zero, the board stops them before they can cause trouble and provides a detailed explanation on the serial monitor

The last part looks like a disaster waiting to happen if serial is used for external device control, hope it can be easily turned off.

 

[trsttte]

That would not be so bad if they used at least Hi-Speed, but it's still Full-Speed only, like 32U4 or 16U2.

It's still more than enough for a simple serial connection. It's kind of a weird to me though, they added the Arm core which naturally will give you much more processing power but that's stepping into a different product category that could make use of different types of interface (maybe throw in a CSI and let the USB download images for example)

The last part looks like a disaster waiting to happen if serial is used for external device control, hope it can be easily turned off.

I didn't pay much attention at first but this is looking to me like a really different thing to the previous UNO R3 that was just a microcontroller. I think they'll probably have an easy way to program the microcontroller directly without the "training wheels" of the arm core

Looks lika a weird in between where it's becomes expensive against micros like the rpi pico and not good enough to compete with full sbc's like an rpi (whenever they get back in stock)

 

[Scrizz]

would've been more interesting with m0+