Note: ipXchange understands that Arduino’s UNO series is not designed for commercial builds, but following our coverage of Maker Faire Rome, we felt our content would be incomplete without a board page for this technology.
The form below can be used to apply for >10 Arduino UNO R4 units for educational and large-scale maker projects. For commercial builds, check out the full range of Arduino boards that ipXchange has covered.
Arduino’s UNO R4 boards present the latest in a long line of UNOs that serve makers, beginners, educational initiatives, and development – it’s no secret that many evaluation boards come with an UNO-compatible pinout. These latest boards are fully hardware compatible with previous UNO shields and maintain the same form factor, pinout, and 5 V operating voltage. Unlike previous UNO boards, the UNO R4 features HID capabilities, meaning that it can be used to emulate a keyboard or mouse when connected to a computer via the USB-C port.
Arduino offers two flavours of their latest UNO: The R4 WiFi and the R4 Minima. The key features shared by both boards are outlined below before discussing the features particular to each.
The most notable improvement over previous UNOs is a boost in processing power and system memory. The UNO R4 boards feature a Renesas RA4M1 32-bit MCU with an Arm Cortex-M4 core running at up to 48 MHz (with Floating Point Unit (FPU)), and this is supported by 256 kB flash memory, 32 kB SRAM, and 8 kB EEPROM data memory. These boards also feature a Real-Time Clock (RTC), memory protection unit and the following peripherals and interfaces:
- Capacitive touch sensing unit
- USB 2.0 full-speed module
- 6x 14-bit ADC
- 1x up to 12-bit DAC
- Operational amplifier
- 1x UART
- 1x SPI
- 1x I2C
- 1x CAN
The UNO R4 boards accept power via USB-C (at 5 V) or a barrel jack that is connected to the VIN pin. An extended input voltage range of 6-24 V means that the UNO R4 boards can be seamlessly integrated with 24-V projects using a single power supply, such as builds using motors, LED strips, and actuators. Schottky diodes are present for overvoltage and reverse polarity protection.
The UNO R4 Minima can be seen as a stripped-back version of the latest UNO offering, but a key feature not present on the UNO R4 WiFi is a 10-pin SWD connector for external debugging. For full details of the Arduino R4 Minima, please consult this official datasheet.
The UNO R4 WiFi adds an Espressif ESP32-S3 module to the mix for WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity, enabling designers to use their UNO in conjunction with mobile apps and Arduino IoT Cloud for remote monitoring and control. Additional antennas are not required, but the shared antenna means that only one wireless technology can be used at a time.
In addition to wireless connectivity options, the UNO R4 WiFi offers a Qwiic connector for I2C interfacing with a great many third-party sensors and actuators, as well as specific pins for separate battery-powered operation of the RTC when the unit is not plugged in. An additional error-catching diagnosis tool makes advanced projects with the UNO R4 WiFi easier to manage with detailed explanations regarding problematic lines of code.
Most striking of all, the UNO R4 WiFi features a 12 x 8 red LED matrix that can be used as an additional HMI/display without additional hardware. Arduino provides tutorials, libraries, and tools that allow for easy programming and animation generation using this unique feature to bring a little extra to your project. More information on the UNO R4 WiFi can be found in this official datasheet.
For those looking to purchase a large number of Arduino UNOs for a project or initiative, fill in the form below, and ipXchange will put you in touch with our contact at Arduino to see what pricing can be arranged.
(Images sourced from Arduino)
