The exciting new news from Arduino was the R4, this may sound like an upgrade to the M3 but it is really a completely new board with exciting specs
Here is an image of this new board from the Arduino website
Summary
The Arduino UNO R4 will come in two versions – UNO R4 WiFi and UNO R4 Minima
The UNO R4 is powered by a Renesas RA4M1 32-bit Cortex®-M4 processor.
The Renesas RA4M1 (Arm Cortex®-M4) will run at at 48MHz, that is 3x increase over the UNO R3. In addition to that, the SRAM has been upped from 2kB to 32kB, and flash memory has also been increased from 32kB to 256kB.
The USB port on the new board is finally a USB-C type and the maximum power supply voltage input was increased to 24V.
The board has CAN bus support and also includes a 12-bit analog DAC.
The WiFi version will also come with an Espressif S3 WiFi module in addition to the RA4M1.
The UNO R4 maintains the same classic form factor, shield compatibility, and 5V operating voltage as its predecessor.
Arduino also says that most existing libraries and examples will work on the new board.
Comparison
| Uno R4 | Uno R3 | |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | Renesas RA4M1 (48 MHz, Arm Cortex M4) | ATmega328P (16 MHz, AVR) |
| SRAM | 32K | 2K |
| Flash Storage | 256K | 32K |
| USB | Type-C | Type-B |
| Max Voltage | 24V | 20V |
Summary
Its an interesting upgrade for the popular Arduino Rx boards but with the very interesting Rp2040 boards available, is it enough. The arduino name will guarantee sales and the compatibility with existing hardware will be key for makers
If you need a bit more power and wifi support and don't want to majorly change then this be just what you need.
I'll be looking for availability in May and see if I can get one, I will also be keenly looking at the pricing. Again the Rp2040 and ESP32 has introduced high spec boards at reasonable prices
