Arduino Oplà IoT Kit - Unboxing and First Impressions

[Music] hey guys today i'm going to be taking a look at the new opel iot kit from arduino which they've kindly sent across for me to share with you so thank you to arduino for making this video possible this kit is very new it was only launched early in november so just in time to find it under the tree for christmas [Music] the kit includes the maker iot carrier which is the big round board featured prominently on the front of the box as well as the maker wifi 1010 arduino board cables for the sensors and battery a motion sensor a moisture sensor a plastic enclosure and then a usb cable using the included components and the instructions you can build eight projects which all make use of the internet in some way some of these are more common like the smart garden and weather stations and then there are also some unique ones like the solar system tracker and thinking about you project the kit sells for 114 from the official arduino website i'll put links to the arduino store product page and to the kits on amazon in the video description it is quite expensive but it also comes with a lot of functionality on the iot carrier board which we'll get into in a bit let's get the box open and see what's [Music] inside with the slip-on cover removed you're immediately presented with the maker iot carrier board as well as an introduction to the kit and where to get started the carrier board is the heart of this kit and although the maker wifi 1010 board is the brains behind the kids this carrier is the device you connect all of the sensors and io devices to and what you use to control and interact with the arduino as well it looks like we then flip open the side panel to find the rest of the components behind it so in the back of the box we've got the arduino case sensors and the cables let's take a closer look at the components on the carrier we've got a large round oled display in the middle surrounded by five rgb leds and five capacitive touch sensors and then some smaller sensors along the bottom edge these look like a humidity sensor a light sensor and then the imu or motion sensor on the back we've got some sockets for the external sensors and then two relay outputs which can be used to drive things like lights or pumps or switch appliances on and off we've also got the socket for the arduino and an sd card slot and battery holder the carrier takes a 18650 lithium-ion battery which from the box sounds like it can be charged by the carrier board as well we've then got this plastic enclosure the plastic is frosted over but you can still see insert to see the buttons on the display the back cover looks like it just snaps into place and has two screw holes to mount it onto a wall we've then got the arduino maker wifi 1010 board which has both wi-fi and bluetooth connectivity we've also got a motion sensor and a capacitive moisture sensor which i prefer over the resistive moisture sensors lastly we've got some cables and then some small screws which are assumed to mount the carrier to the case the front panel inside the box said that we should head over to opler.arduino.cc to get started so let's have a look at what's there the opela iot homepage lists the eight included projects and then each project page includes instructions that detail which components are used as well as how to assemble program and use the arduino and carrier to complete the project there are also two getting started cards one which shows you how to use and program the carrier and another which details how to use the cloud functionality there are essentially two different ways to use this kit the first is to upload your project directly to the arduino and use it in conjunction with the carrier and the second is to load a generic cloud application onto the arduino and then connect to it using arduino's cloud server this enables you to create dashboards to view information and control and monitor the sensors and relays remotely included with the kit is a 12 month maker plan which gives you access to arduino's web-based toolkit enabling you to create store and compile sketches online as well as store data from your cloud-connected arduino boards they've also got an android and ios mobile app which allows you to view and control your arduino from your mobile phone or tablet let's put the arduino into the iot carrier and try out the introductory sketch [Music] the chip on the maker wifi 1010 board is an ats amd 21 chip which sits alongside the wi-fi module the arduino plugs into the back of the iot carrier and you still program the arduino by plugging the included usb cable directly into the arduino's usb port i then use the online ide to compile and upload the opela iot example code which displays a basic temperature and humidity readout on the early display you'll need to install a small plugin onto your computer to allow the web application to communicate with your arduino but this was quick and easy to do and the application picked up my board right away i uploaded the code and was able to see the temperature and humidity data being displayed on the serial monitor the carrier now also displayed the temperature in red and i was able to change between the temperature and humidity displays by simply touching the two sensors alongside the display as with other genuine arduino products the iot carrier board feels like it's really good quality and well built i also like that they've included enclosure as a way to make your projects look more complete without having to buy or 3d print a case overall i really like that arduino has taken another step towards building a cloud-based system there already loads of projects out there to create iot devices but without having a dedicated server to host cloud services you're left with only having local network control or having to try and get your own static rp address and configure port forwarding on your router to access your device over the internet making it significantly more complicated and less secure than this solution [Music] look out for my next opela iot video where i'm going to be trying to build one of the included projects thanks for watching please remember to like this video if you enjoyed it and subscribe for more tech and electronics projects tutorials and reviews

Channel: Michael Klements

Views: 10,708

Keywords: Arduino, opla, opla iot, opla iot kit, iot kit, mkr, arduino mkr wifi 1010, mkr wifi 1010, arduino wifi, wifi, internet, iot carrier, mkr iot carrier, arduino iot carrier, oled, humidity, temperature, moisture sensor, unboxing, review, impressions, first impressions

Id: C4Sc2h8mtW0

Length: 7min 58sec (478 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 14 2020