SparkFun's Modular Smôl Boards Offer a Compact Footprint with Maximum Capabilities

SparkFun has launched a development board family in an entirely new form factor, designed to strike a compromise between functionality and footprint: the smôl range.

"Our RedBoards are great. But don't they sometimes seem a little BIG," SparkFun writes of the idea behind its new gumstick-style development and peripheral boards. "Enter smôl, a new range of boards which are both small in size and small on current draw. It's a smôl world!"

The idea behind the smôl family is modularity: Each stackable board, designed for a minimal footprint, connects to the next via a 0.5mm-pitch connector and a flexible printed circuit (FPC). At launch, there are three main boards: An Espressif ESP32 microcontroller board with USB Type-C connectivity; a ZOE-M8Q board with 72-channel GNSS receiver, on-board battery, and real-time clock; and an ARTIC R2 board which offers data transmission and reception via the ARGOS nanosatellite network.

For power, SparkFun offers two add-on boards: One offers support for AAA or AA batteries, while the other connects to a lithium-polymer battery. Both include an on-board microcontroller, offering intelligent control of a deep-sleep made offering current draw as low as 6µA. Finally, there's a smôl Header board — necessary to gain easy access to the connections on the FPC and offering a breadboard-compatible through-hole pinout.

SparkFun has confirmed additional smôl designs waiting in the wings, but has stopped short of moving any of the designs into its mainstream product lineup. Instead, they live under SparkX — its experimental product portfolio, offered for testing and without any guarantee that they will be available long term.

The full smôl range is now available on the SparkFun website, with pricing for the main boards ranging from $17.95 for the ESP32 microcontroller board to $199.95 for the ARTIC R2 satellite communications board.