
Microduino: An Arduino nearly as small as a quarter, for $20 - shawndumas
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/09/microduino-an-arduino-nearly-as-small-as-a-quarter-for-20/
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_neil
Previous discussion, from yesterday:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6426142](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6426142)

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throwaway1979
I asked the same question yesterday ... how is this different from Tiny
Circuits? I got a set of these and Tiny Lily at Maker Faire this weekend.
Those seem to be the same size. There is no ethernet shield for Tiny Circuits
but is there a fundamental difference?

Also, side note, was there a recent technical innovation in manufacturing that
so many small form factor boards are popping up everywhere?

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jeroen94704
I don't think there is anything fundamentally different between _any_ of the
*duino boards, apart from the form-factors. That is one of the interesting
aspects about the Arduino ecosystem though: its diversity. IMHO, the
Microduino system looks like a collection of awesome little boards that are
extremely modular. And yes, that is pretty similar to what the TinyDuino
offers.

So what?

The most powerful aspect of the Arduino is not the boards anyway, it's the
software platform with the incredible number of libraries that makes it
dramatically easier to program the atmega328 and its relatives. In fact, I
have never bought an actual Arduino board, but alway rolled my own. But I'm
still using the Arduino IDE, even though as an editor is sucks, simply because
the libraries make life so much easier.

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throwaway1979
In case it came out wrong ... I'm not complaining about novelty. I'm merely
wondering if I missed something given that so many news outlets are talking
about it :)

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ck2
$12, smaller
[http://www.femtoduino.com/spex/femtoduino](http://www.femtoduino.com/spex/femtoduino)

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mitchty
I backed these kickstarter guys:
[http://www.rfduino.com/](http://www.rfduino.com/)
[http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1608192864/rfduino-
iphon...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1608192864/rfduino-iphone-
bluetooth-40-arduino-compatible-boa)

They're shipping now so preorders should ship soon though the femtoduino looks
fun, think ill buy one.

I just like the builtin bluetooth le for the rfduino, means I can do some
crazy fun stuff with it and still keep it accessible. Mines on its way.

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jack12
I'm looking forward to seeing some reviews of these when they start arriving.
I'm especially curious to see how well (or rather if) they achieve that
Arduino IDE/sketch compatibility, it seems like a point that a lot of ARM-
based "arduino compatible" kickstarters have been promising but glossing over.
I know that PJRC's (ARM-based) Teensy 3 has had an enormous amount of work put
into truly making it compatible, hopefully a lot of that is feeding back into
the libraries and main Arduino project in ways that will help all ARM-based
Arduino-compatibles.

Even without support for Arduino/Wiring, that NRF51822 should be fun to play
with! But it looks like NRF51822 breakout boards are already showing up on
ebay at about the same price (and with more pins broken out). So I'm not sure
if preordering is too interesting at this point if it doesn't deliver on
something above and beyond a mere breakout board.

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leokun
Curious about if the "duino" part of the name is a little too similar legally
wise.

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fnordfnordfnord
_Note that while we don 't attempt to restrict uses of the "duino" suffix, its
use causes the Italians on the team to cringe (apparently it sounds terrible);
you might want to avoid it. (It's also trademarked by a Hungarian company.)_

It is covered here:
[http://arduino.cc/en/Main/FAQ](http://arduino.cc/en/Main/FAQ)

Clones and fakes: [http://blog.arduino.cc/2013/07/10/send-in-the-
clones/](http://blog.arduino.cc/2013/07/10/send-in-the-clones/)

As far as I can tell, they tend to focus more enforcement effort on companies
who sell sub-par ripoffs and defects as genuine. It looks like stamping them
out is a full time job.

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ChuckMcM
Holy smokes. That is a fairly complete set of modules / boards.

