In front of the abundance of IoT hardware platforms for prototyping electronics and robotics, we take a look around and select the most excellent prototyping boards and present them to you in a compact overview. Every release keeps you engaged and enables the makers and hackers to learn and build experimental robots and electronics as well.

In this article, we explore the key features and functions of the Genuino/Arduino MKR1000 board. It’s simple to use the MKR1000 board and becomes even simpler when you take a look at two tutorials that have been developed for the introduction of MKR1000 in the IoT field.

This microcontroller board has two names for the reason that it’s marketed as the Arduino MKR1000 in the US and as the Genuino MKR1000 elsewhere. Wherever you use the board, and regardless you’re a robotics engineer, hobbyist or developer, each and every user is encouraged to create IoT applications ranging from automation to robotics and drones. From the technological view, MKR1000 combines the WiFi usage and the functionality of the Arduino Zero.

Key Specifications

The Genuino/Arduino MKR1000 primary audience is the makers who’re trying to build IoT things for an affordable price. All of them loves to build robots and anything else with an Arduino microcontroller.

Genuino/Arduino MKR1000 incorporates on-board WiFi, a hardware security module named Cryptochip, and an SAMD21 Cortex-M0+ 32bit low power ARM MCU. For this Arduino board, the I/O pins can tolerate a maximum voltage of 3.3V.

• On software:
  The Arduino IDE is simple and supported on Windows, Linux (both 32 and 64 bits), and Mac OS X. As usually for an Arduino board, it is not a surprise to see the Arduino IDE as the default environment for programming and code development.
• On electronics:
  The Arduino/Genuino MKR1000 can run on both battery power or external 5V. It has also included a Li-Po charging circuit if the user chooses to charge the Li-Po batteries from an external power. The switch from one source to the other is done automatically.
• On connections:
  MKR1000 makes developing IoT applications easier with hardware, software and secure connections. The Atmel ATSAMW25 SmartConnect platform minimizes the complexity of Wi-Fi connections and allows makers and hackers to concentrate on building things.Below is a summary of the I/O pins and connectivity options:
  • Digital I/O Pins: 8
  • PWM Pins: 4 (D2-D5)
  • UART: 1
  • SPI: 1
  • I2C: 1
  • Analog Input Pins: 7 (ADC 8/10/12 bit)
  • Analog Output Pins: 1 (DAC 10 bit)
  • External Interrupts: 8

Tutorials

These tutorials are designed to help you start using Arduino/Genuino MKR1000 more quickly. If one of these tutorials focuses on the basics, the second one provides an in-depth analysis of an IoT application with the Azure IoT Hub.

• Arduino MKR1000 Getting Strarted
• MKR1000 Azure IoT Hub Interface Using HTTP

Even More Microcontroller Boards

Here are more articles with references to two new microcontroller boards we’ve managed to collect so far.

• HORNET
• Arduino Tian Features a 32-bit ARM Cortex M0 Core, a Qualcomm Atheros AR9342, Linino (openWRT) OS, and WiFi Module

Last But Not Least

We are regularly looking for the most innovative microcontroller boards. If you build one of them, please contact us at office@intorobotics.com — we would like to support you on Into Robotics.