Arduino’s upcoming board, the Yún, is like an Arduino Leonardo and a Linux-based WiFi router packed onto one board. With its release about a week away, The Arduino team is starting to offer details on the hardware and how it all works together. Like the Leonardo, the Yún has an ATmega32U4 chip which can even be programmed via USB, just like the Leonardo.
However, the killer feature of the Yún is the Atheros AR9331 chip, which runs the Linux side of the board. But how does it work with the 32U4? According to the team, “the serial port of the AR9331 exposes the Linux console (aka, the command line interface, or CLI) for communication with the 32U4.” You can even program the board via WiFi. “The ATmega32U4 can be programmed from the AR9331 by uploading a sketch through the Yún’s WiFi interface. When connected to the same WiFi network as your computer, the board will appear under the “Port” menu of the Arduino IDE. The sketch will be transferred to the AR9331, and the Linux distribution will program the ATmega32U4 through the SPI bus, emulating an AVR ISP programmer.”
The board also has a USB host port, which allows you to connect computer peripherals like flash memory drives, keyboards, mice, joysticks, and webcams to the AR9331 chip.
Of course, we’ll be keeping a close eye on the Arduino Yún and are eager to see what can be done with it!