The Adafruit Feather ecosystem
BEST OF BREED
he Feather HUZZAH ESP8266 is
Adafruit’s answer to all the hype
surrounding the ESP8266 WiFi
development board. The ESP8266 is
an amazing little board that packs a lot
of power. Unfortunately, it also has a
few limitations, and it can be a bit difficult to work
with effectively. Yes, you can do a lot with the board
on its own, but by adding all the features of a Feather
board, you can prototype much faster, and typically
much more easily.
I’m a big fan of the ESP board, but I also like to
build projects fast, and that’s why I typically grab
a Feather HUZZAH when we get building. The
convenience of having the USB plug, along with a
battery-charging circuit, is hard to beat. We also like
the auto-reset since it saves a lot of time, especially
when you’re in the early stages of code development.
Did we mention the biggest reason we like this
board? Take a look at that price!T
Adafruit Feather HUZZAH
with ESP8266
ADAFRUIT $16.95 adafruit.comAdding WiFi the easy way
Keep in mind that the Feather boards are just part of the
overall ecosystem. Adafruit has so many FeatherWings
to provide additional functionality and connectivity.
What’s a FeatherWing? It’s another PCB populated
with extremely helpful components that you add on
top of, or sometimes below, the Feather board. It’s a
similar system to Arduino shields and BeagleBone
capes. These boards add a ton of functionality to an
already capable little microcontroller board. There are
FeatherWings for adding motor control, LEDs, game
pads, LCD screens, and many more options. At the
time of writing this article, there were over 60 different
FeatherWings available on the market.
You can learn a lot more about how to use your
Feather board over at the Adafruit Learning System:
hsmag.cc/jYnOXK.WINGS TO HELP YOU FLY
The convenience of having
the USB plug, along with a
battery charging circuit, is
hard to beat”
”
WiFi in a Feather
format! What’s
not to love?VERDICT
10 / 10
Above
This author’s go-to
Feather board for
any IoT project