The Adafruit Feather 32u4 RFM69HCW Packet Radio Transceiver offers your next project greater range than 2.4GHz 802.15.4 (Low Rate WPAN), more flexibility than Bluetooth and lower power requirements than WiFi. Suitable for use at 868 or 915MHz. These radios excel at small packet communications rather than streaming audio or video and have greater range than BT, BLE, WiFi and ZigBee. Arduino libraries are available so that you can take advantage of this neat little unit which handles 128-bit AES encryption and multi-point networking. Get started with a simple wire antenna then upgrade by adding a UFL connector in the space provided, should you need to.
The Atmel 32U4 is the big brother of the MCU that's been providing the Arduino UNO with its USB port for the last few years, and it's being used in the FLORA wearable boards. Running at 8MHz and 3.3V DC it has 32Kbytes of Flash memory and 2Kbytes of RAM and of course, a native USB port. Compatible with the Arduino IDE.
New to Feather? Adafruit have designed a range of processor boards with a consistent board shape and pinout together with a range of add-on boards with a huge range of functionality. The main boards are based on several popular 3.3V DC microcontrollers (MCU) so that you can choose the one that suits your requirements or your budget. MCUs include the 32U4, Atmel ATSAMD21G18 with an ARM Cortex A0 core, and the popular ESP8266 which is widely used in Internet of Things (IoT) projects. Because Adafruit has used the smallest components available there's room at one end of the board for a specialist function such as an SD-card holder, Bluetooth LE, packet radio, LoRa, a prototyping area or even WiFi.
The Feather main boards feature a USB port for power and programming, a LiPo battery connector, 20 x GPIO pins including 8 x PWM pins and 10 x analogue inputs, and support for serial, I2C and SPI in hardware. Each one has a 3.3V DC regulator which is able to supply up to 500mA peak current. The boards have a 100mA LiPo charging function with a status indicator LED and there's also a general purpose LED for blinking. The Feather boards are about ⅓ x the size of an Arduino UNO and there's even a Reset button.
Once you've chosen your processor, select one or more FeatherWing add-on boards and get developing. The range includes development tools such as prototype boards and an over-size board with screw terminal blocks for external wiring.
Supplied with an assembled and tested main board plus strips of 01.in. header pins for you to solder on as required. Adafruit supply an extensive free tutorial which contains everything you could need, including pinouts and antenna options.
- Range up to 350m depending on the environment and hardware configuration
- Use the licence free European ISM band (868MHz)
- Pads for optional UFL antenna connector (connector not supplied)
- 4 x mounting holes
- Dimensions 51 x 23 x 8mm (2.0 x 0.9 x 0.28in.)
- Adafruit part no.: 3076
*Customers looking to resell on eBay or Amazon should contact Adafruit directly.
