Intel Edison Platform Has Started Shipping

The Internet of Things is expected to be the next big technology revolution, with more than 50 billion connected devices by 2020, and Intel wants to be part of this. In their keynote speech during IDF 2014, they announced that the new Intel Edison developer platform has finally started shipping. We first heard about Edison during CES in January and many people have been waiting to get their hands on this tiny device ever since, hobby builder and Internet of Things developers alike.

The Intel Edison is what you could call small form-factor with its 35.5 x 25 x 3.9 mm size; about the size of a stamp or SD card. That didn’t hold Intel back from packing it full of power, featuring a Dual-Core Silvermont Atom processor running at 500 MHz with support from a Quark processor running at 100 MHz. It has 1 GB DDR3 memory in a 2 x 32 bit configuration and 4 GB eMMC storage. The WiFi capabilities don’t lack either with 2.4/5 GHz dual-band 802.11 a/b/g/n W-Lan and Bluetooth 4.0 powered by the Broadcom 43340 controller.

It is a somewhat odd pairing of the two CPU’s, but it should work well. The Atom takes care of all the main tasks of the SoC while the Quark serves as an embedded micro-controller responsible for running other side-tasks. The entire Edison board can be used as it is or attached to additional developer boards and is compatible to the current Arduino ecosystem.

As for pricing, it doesn’t come in as cheap as the Raspberry Pi and you’ll have to shell out $50 for the Edison module. If you’d like the breakout board kit it will be another $10, making it $60 total. The Arduino kit will costs $85, which is probably the most interesting combination for aspiring developers.

Thank you endgadget for providing us with this information

Images courtesy of Intel