Spark Photon is a $19 Hackable IoT Wi-Fi Board

Spark Core is a popular Wi-Fi module for the internet of things  with a community of over 20,000 developers, but at $39 it may have started to feel a little expensive compared to the new IoT Wi-Fi modules such as ESP82666 or xWiFi, so the company has unveiled a new Wi-Fi board called Photon that’s smaller, better, and cheaper.

Spark Photon and P0 Module
Spark Photon and P0 Module

Let’s compare Spark Core with the new Spark Photon.

Feature Spark Core Spark Photon
Wi-Fi Support 802.11 b/g 802.11 b/g/n
Wi-Fi Setup Smart Config Soft AP
Wireless Module TI CC3000 Broadcom BCM43362
MCU STM32F103 STM32F205
MCU Speed 72 MHz 120 MHz
Flash Memory 128 KB 1 MB
RAM 20 KB 128 KB
GPIO 18
UART (Serial) Yes
JTAG Yes
I2C Yes
SPI Yes
ADC Yes
DAC No Yes
CAN No Yes
VBAT pin exposed No Yes
Wakeup pin exposed No Yes
Price $39.00 $19.00

So beside slashing the price by 50%, the new board supports 802.11 n, comes with a faster STMicro MCU with more memory, and it adds DAC and CAN interface, as well as access to VBAT and Wakup pins. The Wireless module from Texas Instruments has been replaced by Broadcom BCM43362 module that’s used in products like Nest, LIFX, and more.

They’ll also sell P0 module with Broadcom BCM43362 and STM32F205 as shown in the right of the picture above for $10, and a P1 module with a u.FL connector and an antenna on the board.

Finally the company has launched Spark Dev, a new IDE available for Windows and Mac OS, based on Atom project, which also support Linux based distributions.

Spark Photon can be pre-ordered now for $19 + shipping, with delivery scheduled for March 2015.

Via Make

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5 Replies to “Spark Photon is a $19 Hackable IoT Wi-Fi Board”

  1. Yes! DAC, good bye ESP82666. Yes ESP82666 is gonna have DAC too but you have to stop transmitting when measuring.

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