This module works with 802.11b, g, or n networks & supports WEP, WPA and

WPA2 encryption. You can connect to your own WiFi networks or create your

own with "Soft AP" mode, where it becomes its own access point (we have an

example of it creating a webserver that you can then control the Arduino's

pins). You can clock it as fast as 12MHz for speedy, reliable packet streaming.

And scanning/connecting to networks is very fast, just a second or two.

You might be wondering why use this when you can get a HUZZAH Feather? Well,

you get:



A highly-capable Cortex M0+ processor with ton more I/O pins, lots of

12-bit ADCs, a 10-bit DAC, 6 total SERCOMs that can each do SPI,

I2C or UART (3 are used by the existing interfaces, leaving you 3), plenty

of timers, PWMs, DMA, native USB, and more (check out the Datasheet)



The ATWINC has much lower power usage, about 12mA for the WINC &

10mA for the ATSAMD21 with auto-powermanagement on for the WiFi

and no power management for the ARM. With manual power management,

you can get the WiFi module to down to ~2mA by putting it to sleep.



This is compared to the ESP's ~70mA average current draw, and whose

deep sleep mode requires a WDT reset.



We also found that we could stream more reliably (less 'bursty') with the

ATWINC, although altogether the ESP has higher throughput.



You also dont have to 'yield' all the time to the WiFi core, since its a

separate chip. You get full reign of the processor and timing

Of course, both WiFi-capable Feathers have their strengths and tradeoffs, & we

love both equally!

At the Feather M0's heart is an ATSAMD21G18 ARM Cortex M0 processor,

clocked at 48 MHz and at 3.3V logic, the same one used in the new Arduino

Zero. This chip has a whopping 256K of FLASH (8x more than the Atmega328 or

32u4) and 32K of RAM (16x as much)! This chip comes with built in USB so it

has USB-to-Serial program & debug capability built in with no need for an FTDI-

like chip. For advanced users who are comfortable with ASF, the SWDIO/SWCLK

pins are available on the bottom, and when connected to a CMSIS-DAP debugger

can be used to use Atmel Studio for debugging.