Sony Spresense definitely a good board at $65. This development board from Sony is relatively new and sports expected better A/V hardware. Essentially it is a single board computer for IoT development. In other words it is an luxarious Arduino compatible board with ARM CPU. Of course it can run some kind of Linux on it. The board has integrated GPS, Hi-res audio output and multi mic inputs. The point it is yet weak is global availibillity – practically RS Components sells it worldwide.
The board gives a feel of “neither Arduino nor Raspberry Pi, just wow”. Athough Sony marketing it for IoT, it actually has huge potential of sell for non-IoT common DIY development.
What Unique Thing Sony Spresense Offers?
The main board, camera board and extension board is from Sony. The product quality is higher as can be expected from Sony like multinational brand. Arduino to Raspberry Pi are really for working with a tight budget. Sony’s camera for Arduino development is definitely unique thing. It draws little power. It has 6 cores running at 156 MHz. It is audio capable board, with 8 mic channels and hi-resolution stereo output. The total thing from the point of quality of build is excellent.
---
The three unites – main board, extension board and camera board (5MP camera) are separately packaged and sold separately.
Spresense Main Board costs $65.
Spresense Extention Board costs $65.
Spresense Camera Board costs $38.
Practically one will need to buy Main Board and Extention Board as minimum need. So the total cost is $130.
Copy-paste of the technical specification :
Model Name – CXD 5602 PWBMAIN 1
Size – 50.0 mm x 20.6 mm
CPU – ARM® Cortex®-M4F x 6 cores
Maximum clock frequency – 156 MHz
SRAM – 1.5 MB
Flash memory – 8 MB
Digital input / output – GPIO, SPI, I2C, UART, I2S
Analog input – 2 ch (0.7 V range)
GNSS – GPS(L1-C/A), QZSS(L1-C/A), GLONASS(L1), WAAS, QZSS(L1-S)
Camera input – Dedicated parallel interface
Official Resources
For Arduino tools, there are official source on GitHub :
1 | https://github.com/sonydevworld/spresense-arduino-compatible/ |
and own developer account to commit :
1 | https://github.com/SPRESENSE |
There are usual Arduino style sketch :
1 | https://github.com/SPRESENSE/spresense-sketches |
Sony has own SDK for development for nuttx development :
1 2 3 | https://developer.sony.com/develop/spresense/specifications https://developer.sony.com/develop/spresense/developer-tools/get-started-using-nuttx/set-up-the-nuttx-environment |
I beleive that the board is great for audio & vehicle computer hacks. But only for building an audio player is too huge investment when cost of Sony NW-A45 High-Res Audio Walkman costs lesser than $200.
There are some projects like these :
1 2 3 | https://www.hackster.io/karl-sony/spresense-audio-scope-e0c3d3 https://www.hackster.io/armaghan/spresense-mp3-player-20f434 |
