UDOO Looks To Combine Best of Raspberry Pi, Arduino

An anonymous reader writes "The Kickstarter campaign for the UDOO board is 7 days out from closing and they currently sit just under $4,000 short of their stretch goal of $500,000. The UDOO is an attempt to produce a single board which would combine the best parts of both Raspberry Pi and Arduino. UDOO will have a 1GHz ARM i.MX6 CPU in either a Dual Core or Quad Core flavor, 1 GB DDR3 RAM, HDMI and LVDS + Touch, and both an RJ45 port and an on board Wifi Module. Along with those specs, it will be compatible with Arduino DUE R3. The UDOO will utilize Micro SD as a boot device and run both Linux and Android. Currently on Kickstarter, the Dual Core starts at a pledge of $109."

Comments

Best of?

[ArcadeMan]

Udoo dual core: 110$
Arduino DUE: 50$
Raspberry Pi (model B): 40$
Arduino Uno: 30$
Arduino Pro mini: 10$
ATmega328P: 3.50$

Re:Best of?

[KiloByte]

Odroid-U2 $89, four cores at twice the clock, twice the memory.

Most of us don't need GPIO/etc so it's not in the standard, you can get that on an $15 expansion board.

Re:Best of?

[greg1104]

The cool part about the Raspberry Pi is that it runs Linux. Its ability to interface with non computing hardware could be better.

The cool part about the Arduino is its analog and digital I/O interfaces. It has standard connectors for that purpose, beaten into useful form via a lot of people over the years, and there's even a good sized industry providing parts that plug into them. I can wander to my local Microcenter and get all sorts of Arduino parts nowadays.

The combination of the two, running Linux but with the Arduino interfaces, can cost more than both chips combined and still be worthwhile. That's what the UDOO is trying to do. If your goal is to have a generic system that can do all sorts of hacking, this is a possibility for such a device. Maybe the price will even come down over time to have less of a premium.

Re:Best of?

[spire3661]

You can wire an arduino and raspberry together and get the best of both worlds. Also, MicroCenter carries Raspberry Pis at retail now.Not sure why you dont like the busses available on the Pi's GPIO. Its I2c, serial, most of the stuff on the Arduino. I take sensors from my arduino and use them on my pi all the time.

Re:Best of?

[greg1104]

Most of my computer interfacing work crosses over into analog signals, and I'm not always in the mood to wire up circuitry to make a Pi talk to them. And some days I don't want two boards talking to one another via some interface I maintain; I'd like to just have one board to deal with and move on. That's the mindset the UDOO is targeting.

Re:Best of?

[Anonymous Coward]

Forgot http://beagleboard.org/Products/BeagleBone%20Black The BeagleBoard Black 45$ and supports Android and Linux
[just copy/paste from their page]
Processor: AM335x 1GHz ARM® Cortex-A8
3D graphics accelerator
NEON floating-point accelerator
2x PRU 32-bit microcontrollers

Connectivity"
USB client for power & debug
USB host
Ethernet
HDMI
2x 46 pin headers

Software Compatibility:
Ångström Linux
Android
Ubuntu
Cloud9 IDE on Node.js w/ BoneScript library
plus much more

Re:Best of?

[rthille]

Microchip PIC12683: Free samples :-)

Re:Best of?

[geoskd]

The cool part about the Raspberry Pi is that it runs Linux. Its ability to interface with non computing hardware could be better.

The cool part about the Arduino is its analog and digital I/O interfaces. It has standard connectors for that purpose, beaten into useful form via a lot of people over the years, and there's even a good sized industry providing parts that plug into them. I can wander to my local Microcenter and get all sorts of Arduino parts nowadays.

The combination of the two, running Linux but with the Arduino interfaces, can cost more than both chips combined and still be worthwhile. That's what the UDOO is trying to do. If your goal is to have a generic system that can do all sorts of hacking, this is a possibility for such a device. Maybe the price will even come down over time to have less of a premium.

Or you could skip all of that and get a Beaglebone Black. If you want the GPIOs and a powerful processor, get a Beaglebone. The only downside I have found so far is that it only does 720P, not 1080P, but I'm using it for embedded stuff which means a headless system anyways. With 50+ digital IO, and 7 analog inputs, you'll be hard pressed to get anything even remotely close for the price.

-=Geoskd

Re:Best of?

[melstav]

Take the ODroid and bolt an Arduino DUE onto the same PCB. That's pretty much exactly what this is.

Re:Best of?

[melstav]

The $110 UDOO Dual core is most comparable to : RPi x 2 + Arduino DUE = $130 (using your numbers)

The $130 UDOO Quad core is most comparable to : RPi x 4 + Arduino DUE = $210

So yes, if you're just going to compare one embedded board to another, without taking into account their relative capabilities, the UDOO is more expensive. If instead, you compared the boards based on BOTH cost AND capabilities, things look very different.

Sure, for some things an Arduino mini is going to be plenty. But some projects make more sense with a multicore system processor and an I/O subprocessor.

Re:Best of?

[drolli]

And why is "running linux" a good thing for a microcontroller with a function which is implemented in 20 lines of C?

Its also a misconception that linux single-board computers for experimenting with GPIO in this price range dont exist.

Re:Best of?

[fufufang]

The combination of the two, running Linux but with the Arduino interfaces, can cost more than both chips combined and still be worthwhile.

How about Beaglebone Black?

Re:Best of?

[petermgreen]

Beaglebone series: more CPU power than a Pi and plenty of IO including anlog inputs. The original beaglebone white was quite a bit cheaper than the udoo and the beaglebone black is cheaper still (though slightly more than a Pi)

Now granted the udoo is dual/quad core while the beaglebone black is only single core but I bet the hype round this will lead to it getting used where the beaglebone black is a better fit.

Re:Best of?

[ozmanjusri]

Thanks for the tip on the Odroid-U2, that looks interesting. I'll check it out for sure.

But this UDOO board sounds like it's for me, not you...

I'm currently experimenting with IOIO boards and Android phones/tablets, so something like this would be a nice option.

Two ARM processors?

[ArcadeMan]

From the Kickstarter page, it seems this has two ARM processors. Call me crazy but it would make for an incredible platform for a MAME machine. Make the quad-core CPU emulate the hardware and the single-core emulate the CPU(s) of the original machine.

The development of FPGA Arcade seems too slow for my taste.

Re:Two ARM processors?

[hamster_nz]

As FPGA Arcade are conversions of hardware to run in an FPGA each conversion requires a lot more work than software emulation - but it can be done! Drag down some arcade schematics of the Web, get a cheap FPGA board and get started - see this post

For each different hardware platform I guess it takes three months of spare time to convert - as long as usable implementations for the major ICs can be found!

Re:Two ARM processors?

[melstav]

I think you missed the point. He wants other people to do the work of porting the games. He just wants to be able to play them on an FPGA.

Re:Two ARM processors?

[melstav]

Except that when you're trying to emulate processors and hardware, trying to spread that across multiple threads makes trying to get clock-cycle-perfect synchronization between the different parts of the emulated hardware gets really freaking hard. And since MAME is all about emulating the hardware as perfectly as possible, that's not gonna happen.It's been discussed at length in the various MAME mailing lists and FAQs.

MAME does use multithreading for graphics rendering, but all of the hardware emulation is single-threaded.

Now, if you were to build an arcade cabinet around this thing, connect the arcade controls to the board's Arduino, and load a sketch that emulates either a keyboard or multiple gamepads.

What... like a pcDuino?

[hamster_nz]

I've got a US$60 pcDuino, which is close to this. Sort of like a Raspberry Pi with Arduino(ish) I/O headers - they just lack the same spacing so an interposer is required. Runs Andriod, Linux and XBMC just fine...

The devil is in the detail. I wonder how good their Arduino work-a-like API library will be... with the ADCs have the same resolution? Will timing sensitive bit-banged I/O still work OK? Will PWM be the same?

Re:What... like a pcDuino?

[drinkypoo]

That's pretty cool, but why for no jelly bean? Lots of JB-only features these days, and the OS itself tends to be easier on the resources (more free memory on JB roms than ICS roms!)

Re:What... like a pcDuino?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

The implementation is such that the devil in the details will be banished; but replaced by the devil in communicating with the details:

The Arduino work-a-like should be perfect, since the 'Arduino' half of the system is provided by exactly the same Atmel SAM3X8E as the Arduino Due, with the same I/O headers and so forth. The Freescale Cortex-A9 half of the board can communicate with the Atmel side; but has no role in attempting to emulate Arduino anything.

However, because of that, it's architecturally just a reasonably speed ARM board with an Arduino connected to it. Smaller footprint, because the two systems share a board; but software running on the Cortex-A9 side of things will just see a USB device of whatever flavor the Arduino is providing(they used to be USB serial only; but I think they can emulate HID devices and possibly a few other things now as well). The two processors don't share a memory space, or have automagic access to one another's peripherals, or anything of that nature.

Re:What... like a pcDuino?

[melstav]

I wonder how good their Arduino work-a-like API library will be...

It won't be.... "a work-a-like", that is. The UDOO board is, quite literally, what you get if you take an Arduino DUE and bolt it onto the same PCB as a quad-core ARM system with a SATA port(*), instead of using a USB cable to connect the two. The Arduino code runs directly on the ATSAM3U, just as it would on a "real" Arduino DUE.

(*) The dual-core board will *NOT* have a SATA port.

Re:What... like a pcDuino?

[melstav]

Oh, and the pcDuino is "close to" this in so far as a board with only a single-core ARM Cortex-A8 can be considered "close to" a board with a dual (or quad) ARM Cortex-A9 *AND* the same Cortex-M3 that's on the Arduino DUE.

Which is to say, not very.

Re:What... like a pcDuino?

[am 2k]

The two processors don't share a memory space, or have automagic access to one another's peripherals, or anything of that nature.

The two processors share the digital GPIOs, so there's a lot of peripheral sharing possible (this doesn't include WiFi though, as that chip is wired directly to the Cortex A9).

Re:What... like a pcDuino?

[hamster_nz]

Oh - I was more thinking like it was a ARM board running a full Linux stack, that had the headers you need to plug random bits and bobs in, to so stuff... my mistake.

Let me just duct-tape an Arduino to my Cubieboard and jumper the power and serial ports together...

at $109 they miss the point

[Anonymous Coward]

it's more expensive than buying an arduino, an Pi, and a board to connect the two.

It's more powerful than the Pi, but there never was any shortage of boards that were more powerful than the Pi and also more expensive. Those boards used to be in the $200 range, so at $109 Udoo is a bit better, but it's nowhere close to the pricepoint of the Pi or BeagleBone Black

At $35 the Pi is something that you can give to kids without having to really think about it. It's also something that you can just install in a project and leave it.

At $109 the Uboo becomes something that you think much harder about giving to someone, and you don't just leave it in a project, you remove it from one project to build the next

David Lang

Re:at $109 they miss the point

[amiga3D]

I think the best thing about the PI is that it proved a point. There is a market for cheap, capable tiny computer boards for projects. The PI selling one million units spurred all kinds of hardware development. Even if they aren't as cheap as the PI it still improves the prospects for making impressive projects.

Nice robot controller

[Animats]

Now that's a nice robot controller.

I hate to break it to them

[slashmydots]

...but here's almost exactly the same specs, assembled and with Android 4.1, for $80:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834686007
1GHz A9 CPU
1GB DDR3
Touchscreen
onboard wifi
Plus this has a preconfigured OS plus I heard it's easily rootable to run Linux and whatever else and a Mali 3D accelerator/GPU which is quite nice at HD netflix and games.

Re:I hate to break it to them

[idlake]

No, it doesn't have the same specs: it's missing the Arduino. People buy don't by these boards to run Android, they buy them to develop embedded applications.

Re:I hate to break it to them

[melstav]

It's also only a single-core A9. Not dual or quad. And it lacks a SATA port.

Re:I hate to break it to them

[melstav]

While I will grant that you're right, "doesn't usually" is not the same as "never".

STM32F4Discovery

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot one: STM32F4Discovery: $14

Arduino Yun

[idlake]

Arduino is coming out with the Yun, another combination of non-real time Linux chip and real-time ATmega chip, and it includes WiFi. It also is ready to go when you power it on, and allows you to upload sketches over the air. It looks like a better deal and better design to me for many applications.

The UDOO has HDMI output and some other features, but it's not so clear to me what the advantage of UDOO is over just plugging a regular Arduino into a Raspberry Pi via USB (and the resulting combo is cheaper to boot).

Re:Arduino Yun

[melstav]

The UDOO has HDMI output and some other features, but it's not so clear to me what the advantage of UDOO is over just plugging a regular Arduino into a Raspberry Pi via USB (and the resulting combo is cheaper to boot).

Actually, the RPi is single-core, and thus you would have to bolt FOUR of them (at $35/ea) together with an Arduino DUE (at $50) to have something comparable to the $130 UDOO Quad, (board-only -- the board packaged with power supply, 2 preloaded SDCards, and HDMI cable is $160) and that mess wouldn't get you the SATA port that's on the UDOO Quad. -- The dual-core UDOO doesn't have SATA.

Re:Arduino Yun

[idlake]

You're missing the point. These devices are for embedded applications and robotics, where low power and low cost matter. SATA, HDMI, and (in many applications) multiple cores are not an advantage. I think the UDOO is too big and too expensive for applications where you want an Arduino.

Re:Arduino Yun

[melstav]

Actually, I think it is YOU who are missing the point. Because if an Arduino will satisfy your needs, then by god, use the Arduino! If your project's small enough that a $30 Arduino UNO will be ample for what you want it to do, you'd be downright silly to build your project around one of these, instead.

But you're falling into the same trap that a lot of other people are -- thinking that all embedded systems have the same needs. Not all embedded systems need to be low-power, battery operated, or have no need for a display or a disk controller. Some robots need a lot more processing power than you can cram in an 8-bit micro, especially if you're dabbling in machine vision and autonomous systems. A document scanner (not to be confused with a document camera), laser printer, blu-ray player, and an XBOX 360 are all examples of "embedded systems", too.

The above list showcases another misconception about embedded systems: Not all embedded systems can stand alone. Sure, you could probably build a scanner around an Arduino -- I've certainly had scanners in the last 30 years that were built around much less capable microcontrollers -- but you'd need an external computer to drive the thing and to stitch the images coming off the sensor together into one single page and save that as whatever document format you want. If you just want to connect it to your desktop computer or you've already got a spare PC that you want to dedicate to controlling your project, that's fine. But you can save a lot of space and power if everything were able to be integrated into a single system.

I'm not trying to say that you should go out and buy a stack of these and use 'em everywhere you'd use an Arduino. That wouldn't make any sense. It's entirely possible that you, personally, are never going to contemplate a project that would ever need more than an Arduino UNO, or maybe you'll eventually upgrade to a DUE. And that's okay. Really, it is. But just because YOU don't have a need for something like this, doesn't change the fact that some of the rest of us might.

Re:more than one usb?

[geoskd]

All of the SBCs with ARM SoC's I've looked at, like RRi and BeagleBone have only a single USB channel that everything goes through. I found that it was impossible to reliably transfer audio into the device while monitoring levels over a WIFI adapter that necessarily hangs off the same USB channel. Since the audio runs in isochronous mode the USB controller just drops frames when things get tight. Maybe it would work better with a low latency kernel but I also found that the preemptive and low latency kernels are buggy on the BeagleBone I was trying and probably all ARM platforms. For my app, an audio recorder, I had to switch to a PicoITX format Atom. It's way overkill, expensive, sucks power, and gets very hot but it has four separate USB channels and preemptive/low-latency is debugged on x86 so it actually works.

I'm not sure, but I thought I read somewhere that the Beaglebone Black separated the ethernet from the USB onto different access ports, thus freeing more resources for both. I could be wrong though, I've been reading far too many technical documents lately... Eyes getting kind of blurry...

Yawn, been done, got one...

[CaptainOfSpray]

...it's called a Gertboard http://uk.farnell.com/gertboard/gertboard/board-gertboard-assembled/dp/2250034, plugs directly onto the Pi, has an Arduino, a motor controller chip, an A/D and D/A chip on it, breaks out all the GPIO pins, buffered, completely jumperable. Price equiv 46 USD.

Still missing the key for me, POE

[jackb_guppy]

Power over ethernet or USB3 device port (ie slave to another computer) would make these type of machines MUCH better, because the stand alone power supply is no longer needed. Think of BEOWULF cluster that was here on /. The cool think there was a different way of connecting power to each of the 32 RPi. But that was also two more power supplies to power them. If the RPi could have gotten POE, then switch he used could have been upgraded and all RPi powered just by being connected. Think of those CISCO phones on your desk. Thats how they work.

I also would like monitors to offer a USB port with enough power to run these machines (USB). Just like the in-line amps for HD antennas these days, Use the USB port on the back of the TV to power themselves.

My current RPi has Plugable USB 2.0 4 port w/ BC 1.1 Charging Hub. I use one port to power RPi and the other 3 ports to extend the USB of RPi. It can even power a hard drive connected to hub. But it looks like WART on back of RPi taking away the small size with lots of wires going in and out. Not clean looking.

$500000 for a $100 device?

[thegarbz]

Why on earth does someone need a $500000 Kickstarter to build a device with a $100 BOM? The R&D in this case is not expensive. Even if they have 10 goes at it the BOM will be maybe a tad over $1k. What did they have 10 people working full time for a year trying to build this? What ever happened to getting a loan and investing a bit of time into creating a product?

Is $4000 going to be the difference between pass and fail for this project? Are the people going to get to $496000 and say, "Oh well we tried, sorry guys it won't happen." and then head off to the Bahamas?

Re:$500000 for a $100 device?

[dballanc]

I could be wrong, but to me it reads that they HAVE 500k pledged, of 27k desired. Which essentially means their excess pledges are more like 'preorders' for a the final product. That should allow them to negotiate better quantity deals for manufacturing costs at the least.

Re:more than one usb?

[petermgreen]

While one port is a device port I believe it could be converted to a second host port with some relatively minor hackery.

Having looked at the schematics I belive the following steps should do it

1: put a blob of solder between the ground and ID pins of the mini-USB connector (this step may be able to be avoided either by finding a source of mini-B plugs with the ID pin accessible or by forcing things in software)
2: hack up a USB cable to adapt the connectors and inject power.

Note: I have not tested these steps and do not intend to test them until and unless I have a need for a second host port in a beaglebone black based project.

Another option that might be worth looking into for the GGPs application is to ditch the USB audio and look into I2S.

Hey! It's almost a computer!

[Jimhotep]

This trend should lead to a full computer! Maybe like the one I had 10 years ago!

Some sense at last :)

[advocate_one]

they've had the good sense to bring almost all of the connections you need to make to the same side of the board instead of wherever they managed to get the tracks to run to that had a bit of spare space on the Raspberry Pi. I'm not knocking the Pi though, for the price it's amazing and I've got my hands on a 512 MB model B, but rather inconvenient with the connections coming out on all four edges.