There is something not right about using something so powerful just for the wifi and having a much weaker processor as the main processor. I doubt the ESP32S3 is even close to using its full potential as just a wifi and bluetooth chip. If they had used it as the main processor then they would have had a more powerful MCU, could have had much more flash and RAM and potentially the wifi and bluetooth performance could be better. Even if they locked off one of the cores just for wifi and bluetooth it would still be more powerful. ESP32 is supported in the arduino IDE anyway. Likely it is just to keep it similar to the minima version but why go for such a powerful wifi chip then when there are cheaper and less powerful options? It is like when someone makes an SBC that is very powerful but then all the GPIO goes through an atmega328p, it doesnt make sense, especially when they market them for robotics. There are much better and just as cheap MCUs that could be used with more processing power and much better peripherals like faster SPI, CAN and hardware timers. The argument that arduino is easy to use just doesnt work as with these boards you need to write your own code for the main processor and arduino to interface them anyway and many other MCUs can be supported by arduino now.
sure you can upload custom firmware to the esp32: docs.arduino.cc/tutorials/uno-r4-wifi/esp32-upload/ But all of the IOs are connected to the renesas, so you are very limited in what you can do. potentially maybe you could write a special firmware for renesas so that it acts as port extender for esp32 but it will slow down I/O activity quite heavily. @davidgari3240 Am I missing something?
Well that only shows how far behind the typical arduinos are compared to what's used in "normal" devices nowadays. They probably couldn't find a simple chip that supports wifi. Cannot just use one of the modern chips though because of library compatibility, I believe.
why does the R4 wifi have a Quick Connect I2C port if it has limited I2C speeds. The logic behind the R4 series just confuses me. Yes, I do use them for certain projects, but if they instead kept making the R3 but with an ESP32 that can work with it or an affordable ESP32 like everyone else, they might actually do better. Literally the only benefit I find is a 5v pin, but most projects could just use an ESP32 shield, and if you use the Mega, you get far more pins. The R3 with a Wifi Shield is objectively better for more projects, the way they do it with two different microcontrollers on it, it just makes it far inferior to a standard ESP32 development board for most projects because of how much more difficult it is to communicate with the board.
@playduino Obviously I was being rhetorical. But now here is the question. What did they sacrifice in the design to implement that in the design?? We already know that it can't source as much current on its pins. What did they leave off? Is this what the "R4" should look like?? What would a "dream" R4 be?? I'm not an Arduino user so I can't say. The led matrix seems a bit gimmicky and maybe should be its own board. Does the new CPU have floating point capability on the silicon?? That's the real test imo for a chip these days imo otherwise I might as well just use the z80 (well a PIC). I've avoided the esp32 because it's single sourced and Chinese I feel like they put a backdoor in everything. So that's just a no for me. So the subject is, what should have the R4 looked like really?? Maybe a risc V core with the fpu version would have caught my attention. Start with that. Maybe have your own local "cloud" implementation. Do a "clean sheet" design video!
The Arduino Uno R4 couldn't be a true clean sheet design because Arduino needed to maintain compatibility with the R3 as much as possible. However, I suspect the choice of the Renesas chip wasn't purely technical - there might have been investor influence behind this decision. Arduino faced a challenging situation: the variety of powerful 5V chips is quite limited these days, and with the Atmega328P officially marked as 'Not Recommended for new designs,' they had to make a change. Regarding the ESP32 - yes, having a single source in China is controversial. However, it's an amazing chip for its price-performance ratio. As long as you don't connect it to cloud services, you should be fine in most applications. That said, we can never completely rule out the possibility of silicon-level backdoors in any chip.
@playduino I watched a couple of other videos I missed that there was a "minima" version without the esp32 and led matrix. The R4 is an ARM core with an fpu so all is not lost. But since they're moving to ARM from the AVR they'll have to rewrite their libraries anyway so there's that. Not moving to the RISC V a true open source core is a missed opportunity imo. FWIW the Chinese are pretty dastardly salt typhoon proves that in spades. It's crazy to rely on their parts especially if they're warring with Taiwan at some point. Just a bad idea to use it in commercial production imho.
Does anybody know what tool is being used for the visualization at 2:52 ?
It's called Altium Online Viewer.
You can download the Arduino design files from arduino.cc and visualize them there.
@@playduino that's super cool, thanks for replying :)
Not using the esp32 as the MCU seems insane.
Arduino software support for those of fine
There is something not right about using something so powerful just for the wifi and having a much weaker processor as the main processor. I doubt the ESP32S3 is even close to using its full potential as just a wifi and bluetooth chip. If they had used it as the main processor then they would have had a more powerful MCU, could have had much more flash and RAM and potentially the wifi and bluetooth performance could be better. Even if they locked off one of the cores just for wifi and bluetooth it would still be more powerful. ESP32 is supported in the arduino IDE anyway. Likely it is just to keep it similar to the minima version but why go for such a powerful wifi chip then when there are cheaper and less powerful options?
It is like when someone makes an SBC that is very powerful but then all the GPIO goes through an atmega328p, it doesnt make sense, especially when they market them for robotics. There are much better and just as cheap MCUs that could be used with more processing power and much better peripherals like faster SPI, CAN and hardware timers. The argument that arduino is easy to use just doesnt work as with these boards you need to write your own code for the main processor and arduino to interface them anyway and many other MCUs can be supported by arduino now.
I agree, I feel sorry for the ESP that is trapped in this board.
@@playduinoLook closely for the jumper to switch to programming the ESP32 on the Uno R4 WiFi.
sure you can upload custom firmware to the esp32:
docs.arduino.cc/tutorials/uno-r4-wifi/esp32-upload/
But all of the IOs are connected to the renesas, so you are very limited in what you can do. potentially maybe you could write a special firmware for renesas so that it acts as port extender for esp32 but it will slow down I/O activity quite heavily.
@davidgari3240 Am I missing something?
Well that only shows how far behind the typical arduinos are compared to what's used in "normal" devices nowadays. They probably couldn't find a simple chip that supports wifi. Cannot just use one of the modern chips though because of library compatibility, I believe.
Yeah.. I kinda hate this new board honestly. can't think of one good scenario that it would be good for.
why does the R4 wifi have a Quick Connect I2C port if it has limited I2C speeds. The logic behind the R4 series just confuses me. Yes, I do use them for certain projects, but if they instead kept making the R3 but with an ESP32 that can work with it or an affordable ESP32 like everyone else, they might actually do better. Literally the only benefit I find is a 5v pin, but most projects could just use an ESP32 shield, and if you use the Mega, you get far more pins. The R3 with a Wifi Shield is objectively better for more projects, the way they do it with two different microcontrollers on it, it just makes it far inferior to a standard ESP32 development board for most projects because of how much more difficult it is to communicate with the board.
I agree
Thank you so much
"I like to keep things local." Why is it everybody trying to pull us into their $#@& "clouds" all the time??
Because of sweet sweet subscription based recurring revenue
@playduino Obviously I was being rhetorical. But now here is the question. What did they sacrifice in the design to implement that in the design?? We already know that it can't source as much current on its pins. What did they leave off? Is this what the "R4" should look like?? What would a "dream" R4 be?? I'm not an Arduino user so I can't say. The led matrix seems a bit gimmicky and maybe should be its own board. Does the new CPU have floating point capability on the silicon?? That's the real test imo for a chip these days imo otherwise I might as well just use the z80 (well a PIC). I've avoided the esp32 because it's single sourced and Chinese I feel like they put a backdoor in everything. So that's just a no for me.
So the subject is, what should have the R4 looked like really?? Maybe a risc V core with the fpu version would have caught my attention. Start with that. Maybe have your own local "cloud" implementation.
Do a "clean sheet" design video!
The Arduino Uno R4 couldn't be a true clean sheet design because Arduino needed to maintain compatibility with the R3 as much as possible. However, I suspect the choice of the Renesas chip wasn't purely technical - there might have been investor influence behind this decision.
Arduino faced a challenging situation: the variety of powerful 5V chips is quite limited these days, and with the Atmega328P officially marked as 'Not Recommended for new designs,' they had to make a change.
Regarding the ESP32 - yes, having a single source in China is controversial. However, it's an amazing chip for its price-performance ratio. As long as you don't connect it to cloud services, you should be fine in most applications. That said, we can never completely rule out the possibility of silicon-level backdoors in any chip.
@playduino I watched a couple of other videos I missed that there was a "minima" version without the esp32 and led matrix. The R4 is an ARM core with an fpu so all is not lost. But since they're moving to ARM from the AVR they'll have to rewrite their libraries anyway so there's that. Not moving to the RISC V a true open source core is a missed opportunity imo. FWIW the Chinese are pretty dastardly salt typhoon proves that in spades. It's crazy to rely on their parts especially if they're warring with Taiwan at some point. Just a bad idea to use it in commercial production imho.
Dark mode bro. Dark mode 🤦♂️
retarded bro, retarded 🤦♂