The DigiX, by Digistump, is hobbyist board with an Atmel SAM3 Cortex M3 MCU @ 84 MHz, embedded low power Wi-Fi (b/g/n) and mesh networking,audio output, USB on the go support, and the company claims it is 100% compatible with anything that works with the Arduino Due, with some extra I/Os for a total of 99 I/O pins.
The hardware specifications go as follows:
- MCU – Atmel AT91SAM3X8E 32-bit ARM Cortex M3 Processor @ 84 Mhz with 96KB SRAM, 512KB Flash
- Connectivity
- On-board 802.11b/g/n WiFi Module (FCC/CE Approved)
- On-board nRF24L01+ wireless module (removable) – 2.4Ghz band
- 99 I/O Pins including 12 PWM, 12 Analog Input, 2 Analog Output (DAC), CAN bus, 4x UARTs, 2x I2C, SPI, JTAG, DMA and more.
- Audio – 3.5mm stereo jack
- USB – micro USB OTG port
- Misc – On-board RTC, user LED
- Power Supply – 3.3V, 3.4-5.5V (LiPo Ready), 5V, or 6-16V input (on-board buck regulator)
- (Max?) Power Consumption – 1A @ 3.3V and 1A @ 5V Available (when powered at 5V+)
They did not disclose the Wi-Fi module model, but it embeds all TCP/IP stack, consumes an average of 5ma in active mode, and less than 2uA in sleep mode, so the Wi-Fi processor in the module looks similar to TI SimpleLink CC3000 [Update: The Wi-Fi module is currently from USR, more details are available in the comments section]. You can just use Arduino 1.0.5 IDE for development, load one of the sketches for Arduino Due, and it should work out of the box. The board will be compatible with several IoT cloud services such as Xively (formerly Pachube), ThingsSpeak, and Temboo.
For an easy comparison, Digitstump setup a table between DigiX and products for similar applications. The UDOO is a bit in a different league, and its $109 version already includes Wi-Fi, but overall the comparison is very interesting.
The board is ready-production, but they launched a Kickstarter campaign to bring the cost down. There are now just 2 pledges possible for this project:
- $59 DigiX board to be delivered in September 2013
- $149 DigiX board to be delivered in July 2013, with a signature and an “exclusive” add-on.
You can watch the video below for an overview of the board, and see some examples such as an audio player.
On a separate, yet somewhat related, note, if you’re interested in adding Wi-Fi + 2x Ethernet to your Arduino board, you may want to have a look at URUK Wi-Fi Router Module.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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