Whether you’re a hacker or a maker with the goal to be able to easily change or adapt your own robot, the Raspberry Pi is one of the most important tools for reaching your custom robot. The Pi is cheap, small, can run Linux software, and in time was used by developers and hobbyists to build from media centers to game consoles and robots.
A new product with an extremely flexible design and engineered to replace the Raspberry Pi if the board is “too big” is ODROID-W. Targeted especially for robotics and wearable applications, the ODROID-W is a custom single board computer where you can place for example the USB Host on the top side or bottom side with simple gestures.
The ODROID-W is small enough to fit in the palm of your hand and host the same processor and connectors as the Pi. On the software side, the single board computer is fully compatible with any software developed for the Raspberry Pi board.
Let’s take a look at ODROID-W good points:
- small dimensions
- eMMC slot
- several other modules such as ADC, RTC and UPS can be added for a small price (~$4 USD)
- it has the same GPU and camera module as the Pi
- Lipo connector
- expansion boards available
I can put together with the good points, a short list with bad points such as:
- you need to run the same operating system suit such as Raspberry Pi including here Raspbian, Pidora, and more
- no ethernet or wifi onboard
- the same Micro-USB power supply and not DC barrel jack
- no audio in/out other than HDMI
The ODROID-W don’t reinvent the wheel, and like the fruit-named SBC, the board features a Broadcom BCM2835 processor and 512MB of RAM. For storage you can add a microSD card with enough space to store the operating system and several other files.
The board hosts a 26-pin expansion header socket and a 15-pin Raspberry Pi camera cable connector together with several other connectors such as micro HDMI port, MicroUSB port, and a USB host connector.
ODROID-W Optional Accesories
For only $20 you can add extra peripherals with a ODROID-W Docking Board which extend the embedded system with no more than 4 USB ports, 10/100 Ethernet, an audio jack, and Universal Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitter (UART) controller port.
Compared with Raspberry Pi model A, the ODROID-W has more functionality at the same price. Compared with Pi Model B+, the ODROID-W with Connector Pack and Docking Board has a significantly higher price.
At a price of $30, the ODROID-W can do at least as much as its cousin – the Pi. You can use the little board as a cheap desktop power enough to run Raspbian or another operating system from the Pi list, as well as build the smallest and the smartest robot.