Originally, the Edison was intended to use the SD form factor and be powered by Intel’s shiny new Pentium-class Quark processor. Feedback from users of the Quark-based Galileo development board, however, suggested this idea wasn’t going to fly thanks to extremely limited performance. Intel’s answer was a swift redesign into a module format, and to combine a 100MHz Quark with a 500MHz dual-core Atom.
The Edison is still impressively tiny, especially when you look at the feature list: as well as the dual-core CPU and low-power co-processor, the 35.5 x 25mm package includes 1GB of LPDDR3 RAM, 4GB of eMMC storage, and 802.11a/b/g/n dual-band Wi-Fi, plus Bluetooth 4 and 2.1 EDR. Its 40-pin Hirose high-density connector at the rear also carries 14 GPIO channels (four of which support pulse-width modulation), two UARTs to an SD card channel, I²C, I²S, SPI and even USB.
You might wonder how a hobbyist gains access to these wonders, and you’d be right to do so. The official answer from Intel is by using a motherboard into which the Edison bolts; it boasts an Arduino pin-out for GPIO and power, along with USB and micro-SD ports. Using this board, you can turn the Edison into a ridiculously overengineered Arduino Uno, complete with embedded Linux OS and wireless network connection – it isn’t 100 per cent compatible with the Uno, but it’s good enough for most cases. Doing so, though, negates the size and weight benefits of the Edison: the Arduino motherboard is nearly as large as three Arduino Uno boards.
A better option, although I haven’t been able to test it at the time of writing, comes from US-based hobbyist electronics specialist SparkFun. The SparkFun Blocks for Intel Edison are significantly smaller than the official motherboard, and each one is designed to break out a particular feature: there are Blocks to add analogue to digital conversion, USB ports, motor control, pulse-width modulation, GPIO and even one Block featuring a built-in rechargeable lithium-polymer battery. Each Block has a Hirose connector on each side, enabling them to form a stack that combined whatever features you desire with the Edison as the cherry on top.
The fact the Spark Fun Blocks had to exist at all, however, shows that Intel has perhaps missed the mark. The Galileo may have been a poor performer, but its form factor was at least well suited to hobbyists; the Edison is only immediately usable with either the oversized breakout board, making it a more powerful Galileo, or with third-party add-ons.
For industry, the Edison offers more possibilities. People who can spend the time designing circuits with tiny high-density connectors will find the Edison more tempting than the relatively feature-light Raspberry Pi Compute Module, and with the added bonus of using the familiar x86 instruction set architecture.
For educational use, combined with the SparkFun Blocks, there’s certainly an argument for the Edison. For hobbyist use, though, a Galileo is a better option, as is just forgetting about x86 compatibility and using a proper Arduino board at a fraction of the cost.
The Intel Edison is available for £47.94 including VAT as a bare module (useless to hobbyists) or £81.54 including VAT bundled with the Arduino motherboard as reviewed; a cheaper breakout board bundle costs ____.
