Makerdiary Releases Pitaya Go IoT Development Board with Nordic’s nRF52840 SoC

IoT device startup Makerdiary are known for their modules and dongles outfitted with Nordic’s nRF528xx-series of SoCs, such as the nRF53832-MDK V2 IoT module, and the nRF52840 MDK USB dongle, which can be used as both a dev board or multi-protocol node depending on the project. The company has recently released a new entry to their IoT line with the Pitaya Go IoT Development Board, which combines Nordic’s nRF52840 SoC with an Arm Cortex-M4 (256Kb of RAM/1Mb of Flash) with FPU, and Microchip’s ATWINC1500B Wi-Fi controller in a 60.96mm x 25.4mm x 7.6mm package.

On the hardware end, Nordic’s chip provides a wealth of wireless features — including Bluetooth 5, Bluetooth Mesh, Thread, Zigbee, 802.15.4, ANT and 2.4 GHz proprietary. It also offers Arm’s TrustZone Cryptocell 310 Security Subsystem, integrated USB 2.0 Full-speed Controller, QSPI/SPI/TWI/I2S/PDM/QDEC/ADC support, and an integrated NFC-A tag. Microchip’s ATWINC150040 brings IEEE 802.11 b/g/n 20MHz (1x1), extreme low-power shutdown control, on-chip network stack to offload MCU, and WPA/WPA2 Personal, TLS/SSL security protocols, as well as DHCP, DNS, TCP/IP (IPv4), UDP, HTTP, HTTPS, and MQTT network services.

Rounding out the Pitaya’s features are an integrated Li-Po battery charger (with power path management), additional NFC-A tag PCB antenna, programmable RGB LED and buttons, dual Wi-Fi/Bluetooth 2.4G chip antennas, USB-C port, Li-Po battery connector, and an expandable 14-pin header.

The board comes pre-programmed with an Open Bootloader for DFU (Device Firmware Update) and offers an SDW interface (via socket header) to easily program the board with Nordic’s nRF Connect for Desktop and nRF Util tools. The Pitaya is now available for $34.90 on Makerdiary’s product page.