Arduino has introduced a brand new entry in its ultra-compact Nicla vary, the Nicla Sense Env — although this time it isn’t a standalone microcontroller improvement board however an environmental-sensing growth for Arduino Portenta or MKR boards.
“Nicla Sense Env is the most recent addition to our ecosystem, empowering innovators with the instruments to unlock new prospects,” the Arduino workforce writes of its newest {hardware} design. “This tiny but highly effective module is designed to raise your environmental sensing initiatives to new heights. Whether or not you’re a seasoned skilled or simply beginning your journey with Arduino, Nicla Sense Env is right here to assist sense the world round you with precision and ease.”
The Nicla Sense Env is, as you’d anticipate from the title, construct on the Nicla platform — a household Arduino launched three years in the past with the unique Nicla Sense ME, developed in partnership with Bosch. Measuring simply 22.85×22.86mm (round 0.9×0.9in) excluding the protruding micro-USB connector, it is the smallest-footprint board Arduino has ever designed — and the later Nicla Imaginative and prescient and Nicla Voice boards retained the identical footprint.
The Nicla Sense Env, unsurprisingly, has the identical footprint, although not the identical microcontroller: it is powered by a Renesas RA2E1, with a single Arm Cortex-M23 core operating at as much as 48MHz, 16kB of static RAM, and 128kB of flash. Completely none of that is accessible to the person: the Nicla Sense Env is the primary within the household to not be programmable, however as an alternative is designed to behave as a sensor growth board for any Arduino Portenta or Arduino MKR improvement board. In consequence, there is not any micro-USB connection; the board depends solely on its host Portenta or MKR for energy and communications.
The board features a five-pin ESLOV interface for wiring to a bunch Portenta or MKR, with castellated 0.1″ pin headers as an alternative choice. (📷: Arduino)
As soon as linked to an acceptable host, the Nicla Sense Env provides three Renesas sensors to the combo, all concentrating on environmental monitoring: a calibrated ultra-low-power HS4001 temperature and relative humidity sensor, a ZMOD4410 indoor air high quality (IAQ) and whole unstable natural compounds (TVOCs) gasoline sensor, and a ZMOD4510 nitrogen dioxide and ozone gasoline sensor. These sensors are dropped at the host board over a five-pin ESLOV interface, although there are castellated pin headers for handbook wiring or surface-mount set up too.
The Nicla Sense Env is now out there to order on the Arduino retailer, priced at $39; keep in mind that you may want a Portenta or MKR improvement board too, for those who do not have already got one.