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Comment by test1235 | Hacker News Reader

I've only just got started in electronics, and I have to say I find the range of options to be bewildering - what do you think of the Adafruit Feather, Teensy, or Arduino Nano?

(I think they're all comparable products ... apologies if not)

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As stated elsewhere, all are great. If you just want to get going with CircuitPython on some hardware, I really recommend Adafruit’s CircuitPlayground series[1]. They have things like LEDs, temp sensor, speaker, mic, gyro, buttons, switches, and touch-capacitive pads all in a tiny form factor which means you don’t have to get into breadboarding, soldering, or wiring anything up to do an amazing variety of things and get your feet wet.

[1] https://www.adafruit.com/index.php?main_page=category&cPath=...

Nope, these are all pretty comparable. And from the beginner point of view, they're all similar. They can all be programmed using the Arduino IDE and language, and all except the Nano can also be loaded up with Circuit Python and programmed in scripts rather than binary.

They're all pretty simple to use, with good documentation. I would probably add an M5StickC to this list, as they come as a nice modular package, with case and screen and a bunch of fun things for experimenting.

Since they can all be programmed using Arduino IDE, which has good documentation and forum support, you don't have to deal with a bunch of external toolchains and whatnot (though I would suggest VSCode with the PlatformIO plugin as soon as you're comfortable with the programming side of things.)

Ordered most to least simple: Nano Feather M5StickC Teensy

Ordered by most to least powerful: Teensy M5STICKC Feather Nano

Ordered by most to least peripherals: M5STICKC Teensy Feather Nano

Ordered by most to least reliable: Nano Teensy Feather M5STICKC

I haven't used all of these products. I have used several generations of Teensy for projects. I'm a big fan! They're powerful, well thought out, and inexpensive. Paul Stoffregen (creator of the Teensy products), is amazingly responsive to users. The only downsides (for some) is that you have to know C to program them. You can use the Arduino libraries if you want, which provides you with a lot of functionality with very little effort. If you have a specific project you'll be manufacturing, you won't want to use something like this. You'll want to design your own board that only has what you need. But for prototypes, small run, or one-off projects, it's hard to beat the power of a Teensy 4.

FYI there are already new Feather and Nano versions in the works that will have the RP2040 chip!

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