Open source hardware platform maker Arduino officially announced on Monday two updated 32-bit versions of its globally popular UNO R3 development board, one equipped with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth BLE, especially useful for connected IoT project designers and roboticists.
The Wi-Fi version, dubbed UNO R4 WiFi, will begin sales in July for $27.50, slightly less than the recent $27.60 pricetag for its previous UNO R3. The new R4 without Wi-Fi, named UNO R4 Minima, will sell in July for just $20, the company said.
UNO R3 is not being discontinued and the company has no plans to discontinue the line.
“Based on past history we expect end customer demand for the R3 to remain strong as the introduction of more powerful products has had the effect of increasing the market share than replacing sales of core products,” Arduino said in a statement. “Significant efforts are being made on the software side of the UNO R4 to ensure maximum backward compatibility…”
The two new R4s retain the 5V power supply and form factor of the R3, but will see a big increase in clock speed with a 32-bit microcontroller, compared to the 8-bit technology in the R3.
UNO R4 gets the added kick thanks to a new RA4M1 processor from Renesas, a global leader in microcontrollers, analog, power and SoC products with a big footprint in the global automotive market.
RA4M1 is based on an Arm Cortex M4 core and runs at 48 MHz in the UNO R4, which is fitted out with 32 kB of SRAM and 256 kB of flash. Arm’s Cortex M4 core also includes a Floating Point Unit for a performance boost in some apps.
According to Arduino, easy upgrades are possible for projects made with UNO R3 or Leonardo.
The USB port in the previous version is upgraded to USB-C, with max power supply increased to 24V. A CAN bus allows users to minimize wiring and soldering. The wireless capability is made possible with an Espressif ESP32-53 module.
Arduino said 10 million units of UNO R3 have been sold. “Even the most popular UNO R3 must evolve, though we have no plans to discontinue the board,” Arduino co-founder and chairman Massimo Banzi said. With the Renesas and Espressif hardware, he called the UNO R4 “the most versatile maker board on the market."
The company positions UNO R4 as a suitable development board ”for both beginners and experienced electronics enthusiasts,” although Arduino has pushed hard to break free of the “hobbyist” label some critics give it. In the past three years, Arduino has promoted a Pro line with greater capabilities for business and industrial developers and with a greater emphasis on software in addition to hardware. At Sensors Converge 2023 in June, Arduino promoted its Pro line to professionals at its booth.
With the R4 WiFi version, Arduino expects existing Arduino users/developers will be able to collect data in a cloud dashboard and then control an existing project remotely, including by performing over-the-air sketch updates.
A built-in LED matrix made of 96 red LEDs in the R4 WiFi version can also help developers create slideshows and animations with the LED matrix, Arduino noted.
Also, the Renesas MCUs on both UNO R4 boards supports capacitive touch natively. The MCUs are expected to help professional developers prototype projects with IoT connectivity and a CAN bus, the company said.
While Renesas and its RA4M1 is a big win for Arduino’s RA4 and Arduino more generally, the UNO R4 is expected to face fierce competition from various boards built on the Raspberry Pi RP2040 processor, which operates at 133 MHz, more than double the Renesas chip at 48MHz in the Uno R4. The RP2040 also has dual cores and 256K of SRAM. The base price for Raspberry Pi Pico with RP2040 goes for $4 or $6 for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
However, UNO R4 can handle up to 24V of power instead of only 5V on the Raspberry Pi platform, as noted by Avram Piltch at Tom’s Hardware back in March when the R4 board was initially announced in a live stream on Arduino Day.
At that time, Arduino said the R4 would be available in May, but both hobbyists and hippies and even professional developers are not expected to gripe much about a two-month delay.
Arduino’s UNO line goes back to 2010 and was originally based on the Microchip ATmega328P MCU. UNO R3 was first introduced in December 2011. Arduino posted a history of UNO’s development online in late 2021.
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