UDOO recently released, following an extremely successful campaign on KickStarter, a new SBC (single board computer) called Neo.
Why is this a big deal, you ask, when there are so many SBC’s out there already?!
Well, here’s an as short as I can manage run down.
UDOO NEO main features are:
- Tiny, slightly-larger-than-credit-card Raspberry Pi footprint
- WiFi on board (no need for USB hogging dongle like with RPI)
- It’s also an Arduino! a 2-in-1 basically!
- SATA connector
- 1GHz ARM® Cortex-A9 + 200Mhz Cortex-M4 processors
- 9-axis motion sensor
What does that mean and why is it important?
- Cheaper than buying 1) RPI 2 + 2) Arduino + 3) WiFi USB + 4) motion sensor
- Occupies less space and weighs less
- You can connect efficiently large SATA (SSD even) large storage
- Fewer wires, simpler set up
- More USB ports to use
- More powerful than RPI 2 which has A7 Cortex
What could you do with all this?
- Without much else develop a drone/UAV autopilot
- Develop complex, Linux based apps using Python, etc and have them control PWM hardware
- Make it an all-in-one 3D printer controller and driver (normally an Arduino is used for controlling the servos and hot head and another device is needed to read the 3D file etc)
- Use it for a huge number of IOT and maker-type projects – home automation, irrigation and so on
So whilst there are indeed many SBC’s out there, the Neo is pretty innovative and does combine a lot of features together which mean the sum of all parts is greater than their value on its own.
Mind Iterations 