Arduino-Compatible, Wi-Fi Board from HAXLR8R Company, Spark Core

We were too busy travelling to New York and China to notice the launch of Spark Core, probably one of the most interesting prototyping boards to be released…yet. It’s pretty simple: a prototyping board with Wi-Fi on the front and Arduino on the back for just $39, and one week into their Kickstarter, they’re 2238% funded. Boom goes the dynamite!

The team behind Spark Core went through the HAXLR8R hardware startup incubator in Shenzhen that we visited last week (note: we have more blog posts queued up on them!)

This board is far more than just a Wi-Fi module bolted onto an Arduino-compatible chip — it’s a bundled cloud service. For developers it means that you can address and update devices in the field no matter where they are. That’s means Spark Core is perfect for prototyping new internet-connected devices and doing field trials. It also means that the Spark guys have packaged some cloud APIs and triggers for folks to play with (e.g. Facebook status update –> tell device to do something). Heroku for hardware, anyone?

The big picture: much of the electronic component world is not currently IP-enabled (see our post yesterday about this) and once it is, there will be a wealth of low cost hardware available for developing new hardware experiences. Software will rule the day, but you need a way to get connected. Prototyping boards like Spark Core that put the hardware online and wrap it in a cloud service are a way to enable the hacker crowd to start experimenting now. What are you waiting for? Back them on Kickstarter.