The NXP iMX RT1011 that sits at the heart of the Adafruit Metro M7 is, frankly, a ridiculously powerful microcontroller. It’s based on the Arm Cortex-M7 core and runs at 500MHz. Twenty-two of the microcontroller GPIO pins are broken out in the classic Uno (what Adafruit calls Metro) style. This means that there’s already an ecosystem of shields that can go on top to provide additional hardware, though the majority of these shields come with support for the Arduino programming language rather than CircuitPython, and many are 5 V, while this board runs at 3 V.
Alongside the main powerful microcontroller, there’s a second microcontroller – an ESP32 that’s used for wireless networking. In theory, this can do both WiFi and Bluetooth Low Energy, but at the moment, there’s only support for WiFi. Adafruit calls this setup, using a secondary ESP32, Airlift.
The Metro M7 Airlift is the only Wi-Fi-enabled M7 board that we’re aware of, so if you need both oodles of power and network connectivity, then this is a good choice. CircuitPython support is great, as you would expect of a board from Adafruit.
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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.
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Python for Microcontrollers – Adafruit Daily — Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: New Python Releases, an ESP32+MicroPython IDE 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
