Comment by woofie11 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by woofie11 | Hacker News Reader

Not how I'd choose a microcontroller. I would pick ... a BBC Micro:bit.

Why? Three reasons:

* Ecosystem

* Ecosystem

* Standardization

Having the same microcontroller (or small set of microcontrollers) in my house makes maintenance a lot easier and cheaper. Have an ecosystem around me means there's a ton of code to reuse.

I went from:

* Non-standard junk; to

* PIC, briefly; to

* Atmel (switching to standardized Arduino boards when those came out); now to

* Micro:bit

I'd recommend the same to others. Standardize. The past two decades were Atmel, and I recently switched to Micro:bit. More isn't merrier.

Even within a series, standardize. Pin compatibility, plug compatibility, etc. is all a big deal. The most painful projects are ones where I have a one-off oddball part where I can't find an IDE two decades later. The most pleasant ones are where I have a half-dozen standard Micro:bits at home, and if I fry something, or need a second of something, I can just make it.

Seems like that would fall under the "Programming" category:

> Your time is valuable, so something easier to program may save you time/money even if its a little more expensive.

Damn, I knew that the Micro:bit was a thing but I never expected it to embark so many sensors.

Even outside school context it looks amazing to quickly make some IoT or Wearable stuff. Embarking wireless, accelerometer and sound right out of the box is amazing. No more loosely attached cables to extension boards.

Thank you for making me dive into it!

The Micro:bit seems to be a lot less capable than any modern ATmel chip or arduino compatible system. Am I missing something?

Arduino also has a massive ecosystem of code, libraries, IDE's, etc.

Processor: Micro:bit has a 32 bit Arm processor, which is an entry-level 32 bit processor. Arduino Uno has an Atmega328P, which is an 8-bit processor. Arduino has 32k flash, 2k RAM, while Micro:bit has 512KB flash and 128kb RAM. That makes a big difference if you want to be able to run modern programming languages like Python or Javascript (much of anything beyond C), do numerics (e.g. robotics or control systems), etc.

Peripherals: Micro:bit has built-in wireless, so you can have the talk to each other. It has microphone, speaker, accelerometer, buttons, simple display, etc. You can do a lot of things without any shields or extra hardware, and for most projects, you just need one. If I'm building a robot, I get a board which can control motors and servos. With Arduino, I need a whole pile of things.

Lessons: Micro:bit also comes with very nice on-boarding for kids, and I do things with kids. Arduino is a half-dozen more steps of impedance.

Are there higher-end boards under the Arduino brand? Yes. Do they share much of anything with Arduino beyond the name? Not really. If the pinout changes, the processor changes, and the only things which stays the same is the brand logo....

I would rather pick ESP32, it is more powerful than the MS-DOS PCs / Amiga that I used to have access to, so it has plenty of programming power.

My Micro:bit is also more powerful than my first DOS PC:

* It has an ARM Cortex m4 processor (Nordic Semiconductor nRF52833), which is about as fast as my first Windows 95 computer.

* It has 512MB flash, which is better than my 5.25" floppy.

* It has 128kb of RAM, which is the same as my PC Jr.

* It has its own custom radio and Bluetooth, which is better than dialing into BBSes over my 2400 baud modem

... and so on. It's actually a rather capable device, in a kid-friendly form factor.

It's not quite up to the ESP32, but what you lose on capability, you gain on ecosystem. The ESP32 is more a device for people who don't need an Adafruit "How to Choose a Microntroller" manual. It seems like the sorts of people who need an intro guide are better suited to a device with more of a beginner-friendly ecosystem.

Agreed, I just happen to be more found of the ESP32 form factor.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com