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Arduino Uno R4

blog.arduino.cc

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Re: Arduino Uno R4

#11

Post by teraflop »

sho_hn wrote: post #2

What's missing from this announcement for me is a comparison of current draw, sleep states, etc. It's nice to get more powerful within a form factor and voltage and so on, and I realize many applications don't care about energy use, but increasingly the metric I care about with DIY/MCU gear (and my phone and my laptop is) "watt-for-watt performance increase". With DIY stuff especially because I build battery-powered…

Just from a glance at the microcontroller datasheets, it looks like the RA4M1's current draw in "Software Standby" mode is much lower than the older ATmega328P's "power down" mode (5μA vs. ~50μA).

But IIRC, the voltage regulators in previous Arduino boards already waste orders of magnitude more current than that, even while quiescent, making them not very suitable for battery-powered applications. So it remains to be seen if the R4 board improves on this.

Re: Arduino Uno R4

#13

Post by numpad0 »

dale_glass wrote: post #5

A nice improvement, but maybe too little too late? I mean, what's the point? An ESP32 has 320K SRAM, 448K Flash and a 240 MHz dual core CPU. And it costs peanuts. That's the competition to beat, and this doesn't reach it, even though the ESP32 came out in 2016. The Arduino has been resting on its laurels for too long, I'm afraid. There's long been things out there much faster and cheaper, and with wifi out there for…

But can you plug an ESP32 to HEW through the official $1k ICE?

Re: Arduino Uno R4

#14

Post by dale_glass »

okl wrote: post #8
dale_glass wrote: post #5

A nice improvement, but maybe too little too late? I mean, what's the point? An ESP32 has 320K SRAM, 448K Flash and a 240 MHz dual core CPU. And it costs peanuts. That's the competition to beat, and this doesn't reach it, even though the ESP32 came out in 2016. The Arduino has been resting on its laurels for too long, I'm afraid. There's long been things out there much faster and cheaper, and with wifi out there for…

I'm not into Arduinos but I think they are not selling their products because they have the largest RAM or the fastest CPU but because of the Arduino IDE, the language and the community.

The ESP32 can be programmed through the Arduino IDE, using the exact same language. I've done that.

Now the ESP32 as usually delivered is not pin or voltage compatible, but surely that's not that hard of a problem. Just make an Arduino shaped board for it, and use a level shifter?

In fact this very thing seems to exist:

https://freematics.com/store/index.php?route=product/product...

Re: Arduino Uno R4

#15

Post by dragontamer »

dale_glass wrote: post #5

A nice improvement, but maybe too little too late? I mean, what's the point? An ESP32 has 320K SRAM, 448K Flash and a 240 MHz dual core CPU. And it costs peanuts. That's the competition to beat, and this doesn't reach it, even though the ESP32 came out in 2016. The Arduino has been resting on its laurels for too long, I'm afraid. There's long been things out there much faster and cheaper, and with wifi out there for…

But an ESP32 can't turn on an 2N7000 MOSFET. 2N7000 is a 5V MOSFET, and is the cheapest one to boot, and one of the easiest to use.

Re: Arduino Uno R4

#16

Post by em3rgent0rdr »

dale_glass wrote: post #5

A nice improvement, but maybe too little too late? I mean, what's the point? An ESP32 has 320K SRAM, 448K Flash and a 240 MHz dual core CPU. And it costs peanuts. That's the competition to beat, and this doesn't reach it, even though the ESP32 came out in 2016. The Arduino has been resting on its laurels for too long, I'm afraid. There's long been things out there much faster and cheaper, and with wifi out there for…

"When it comes to hardware compatibility, pinout, voltage and form factor are unchanged from UNO R3, ensuring maximum hardware and electrical compatibility with existing shields and projects."

Re: Arduino Uno R4

#17

Post by sho_hn »

dragontamer wrote: post #6
sho_hn wrote: post #2

What's missing from this announcement for me is a comparison of current draw, sleep states, etc. It's nice to get more powerful within a form factor and voltage and so on, and I realize many applications don't care about energy use, but increasingly the metric I care about with DIY/MCU gear (and my phone and my laptop is) "watt-for-watt performance increase". With DIY stuff especially because I build battery-powered…

The microcontroller is under 20mA easily, and under 10mA typical use. https://www.renesas.com/us/en/document/mah/renesas-ra4m1-gro... I'm a bit lothe to admit it, but for beginners... anything under 50mA probably doesn't matter. So that includes Teensy Boards, RP2040, Arduino Uno, this new Arduino, etc. etc. A typical LED draws 20mA for example, while WiFi will draw 100mA or more. Ethernet also draws 100mA+. So its v…

I know all of this of course (but nevertheless thanks for spreading useful information) :-)

What I'm saying is that I would really like this type of announcement to not take shape of absolute performance increase but at least include, if not focus, on performance-per-watt. I honestly don't agree with the "beginners won't care" - battery life is not a difficult concept and battery-powered projects are super common.

And I think it is on Arduino to do this, since the value they provide as a middle-man is to package this BOM up as a product and explain it and their product design choices.

As a sibling points out power efficiency can also vary with other component choices on the breakout board, e.g. the power delivery or included BMS. This is also something Arduino could optimize for and market as they productize. The MCU datasheet isn't everything.

Re: Arduino Uno R4

#18

Post by okl »

numpad0 wrote: post #9

Should I feel relieved that the main chip is not carrying scary prefixes and suffixes like CXD, APQ, uPD, MB, etc., or be absolutely horrified still that it’s a Renesas built ARM?

If you take a look at the Renesas website, you'll find that the product names look like this: "R7FA4M1AB3CFL#HA0". Renesas has a larger portfolio including, e.g., RISC-V chips. What's the problem?

Re: Arduino Uno R4

#19

Post by eternityforest »

dale_glass wrote: post #5

A nice improvement, but maybe too little too late? I mean, what's the point? An ESP32 has 320K SRAM, 448K Flash and a 240 MHz dual core CPU. And it costs peanuts. That's the competition to beat, and this doesn't reach it, even though the ESP32 came out in 2016. The Arduino has been resting on its laurels for too long, I'm afraid. There's long been things out there much faster and cheaper, and with wifi out there for…

Seems like the big feature is 5v compatibility. Most ESP32 boards don't have 5v level shifting.

Re: Arduino Uno R4

#20

Post by ta988 »

dale_glass wrote: post #5

A nice improvement, but maybe too little too late? I mean, what's the point? An ESP32 has 320K SRAM, 448K Flash and a 240 MHz dual core CPU. And it costs peanuts. That's the competition to beat, and this doesn't reach it, even though the ESP32 came out in 2016. The Arduino has been resting on its laurels for too long, I'm afraid. There's long been things out there much faster and cheaper, and with wifi out there for…

Power supply is only up to 16V pins are 3.3V, and it is much more expensive. They are just different products that serve different users. With Arduino you get a 100% working ecosystem there are still a lot of incompatibilities with esp32 (although a lot less these days).
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