Circuit Playground Bluefruit is our third board in the Circuit Playground series, another step towards a perfect introduction to electronics and programming. We’ve taken the popular Circuit Playground Express and made it even better! Now the main chip is an nRF52840 microcontroller which is not only more powerful, but also comes with Bluetooth Low Energy support for wireless connectivity.
This product is coming soon, there’s no ETA on when it will be released but we’re on the way!
The board is round and has alligator-clip pads around it so you don’t have to solder or sew to make it work. You can power it from USB, a AAA battery pack, or with a Lipoly battery (for advanced users). Circuit Playground Bluefruit has built-in USB support. Built in USB means you plug it in to program it and it just shows up, no special cable or adapter required. Just program your code into the board then take it on the go!
Here’s some of the great goodies baked in to each Circuit Playground Bluefruit:
1 x nRF52840 Cortex M4 processor with Bluetooth Low Energy support
10 x mini NeoPixels, each one can display any color
1 x Motion sensor (LIS3DH triple-axis accelerometer with tap detection, free-fall detection)
1 x Temperature sensor (thermistor)
1 x Light sensor (phototransistor). Can also act as a color sensor and pulse sensor.
1 x Sound sensor (MEMS microphone)
1 x Mini speaker with class D amplifier (7.5mm magnetic speaker/buzzer)
2 x Push buttons, labeled A and B
1 x Slide switch
8 x alligator-clip friendly input/output pins
Includes I2C, UART, 6 pins that can do analog inputs, multiple PWM outputs
Green “ON” LED so you know its powered
Red “#13” LED for basic blinking
Reset button
2 MB of SPI Flash storage, used primarily with CircuitPython to store code and libraries.
MicroUSB port for programming and debugging
USB port can act like serial port, keyboard, mouse, joystick or MIDI!
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Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat and our Discord!
Python for Microcontrollers – Adafruit Daily — Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: Open Hardware is In, New CircuitPython and Pi 5 16GB, and much more! #CircuitPython #Python #micropython @ThePSF @Raspberry_Pi
EYE on NPI – Adafruit Daily — EYE on NPI Maxim’s Himalaya uSLIC Step-Down Power Module #EyeOnNPI @maximintegrated @digikey
