Introduction
In 2018 Arduino presented the MKR 1000 wifi controller board. Compared to the older Arduino boards, the MKR 1000 operates exclusively on 3.3 volt. It has an inbuilt LiPo charge controller and a WIFI/BLE unit. It also has more processing power. As a consequence the MKR 1000 MKR is larger than a NANO board.
Adafruit feather alternative
The Adafruit feather series of microcontroller boards offers a range of different boards. The alternative to MKR 1000 wifi include:
- Adafruit Feather 32u4 Bluefruit LE
- Adafruit Feather Huzzah ESP8266
- Feather nRF52840 Express
- Adafruit Feather nRF52 Bluefruit LE
Other brand
Banggood offers a similar development board.
Availability and costs
At Arduino the MKR 1000 wifi microcontroller costs 31 € (March 2021).
In Sweden you can get it at PchButik at 239 SEK (22 €). Without … rs-shop..
Kjell.com sells the soldered versions at 400 SEK. Electrokit has a cheaper price (379 SEK) but also only offers the board with soldered pins.
Elfa charges 445 SEK for a board without soldered pins.
Adafruit
Elektrokit offers the Adafruit Feather 32u4 Bluefruit LE at 389 SEK, Elfa offers the same board at 376 SEK. A better options is the Feather nRF52840 Express that cost 300 SEK (incl VAT) at Elfa.
Ar Electrokit Adafruit Feather Huzzah ESP8266 cost 229 SEK.
Banggood
Banggood offers a similar development board at 160 SEK.
Here is another wifi+lipo board from Banggood at 112 SEK.
https://www.banggood.com/2PCS-LOLIN32-V1_0_0-WiFi-+-bluetooth-Module-ESP-32-4MB-FLASH-Development-Board-p-1652187.html?rmmds=detail-left-hotproducts&cur_warehouse=CN
Resources
New Arduino/Genuino MKR1000: First tests and comparison with ESP8266 by Andreas Spiess (on the original MKR 1000, not the Wifi version).