Arduino Smells the Roses with the Nicla Sense Env — Its First Non-Standalone Nicla Sensor Board

Arduino has announced a new entry in its ultra-compact Nicla range, the Nicla Sense Env — though this time it's not a standalone microcontroller development board but an environmental-sensing expansion for Arduino Portenta or MKR boards.

"Nicla Sense Env is the latest addition to our ecosystem, empowering innovators with the tools to unlock new possibilities," the Arduino team writes of its latest hardware design. "This tiny yet powerful module is designed to elevate your environmental sensing projects to new heights. Whether you’re a seasoned professional or just starting your journey with Arduino, Nicla Sense Env is here to help sense the world around you with precision and ease."

The Nicla Sense Env is, as you'd expect from the name, build on the Nicla platform — a family Arduino launched three years ago with the original Nicla Sense ME, developed in partnership with Bosch. Measuring just 22.85x22.86mm (around 0.9x0.9in) excluding the protruding micro-USB connector, it's the smallest-footprint board Arduino has ever designed — and the later Nicla Vision and Nicla Voice boards retained the same footprint.

The Nicla Sense Env, unsurprisingly, has the same footprint, though not the same microcontroller: it's powered by a Renesas RA2E1, with a single Arm Cortex-M23 core running at up to 48MHz, 16kB of static RAM, and 128kB of flash. Absolutely none of this is accessible to the user: the Nicla Sense Env is the first in the family not to be programmable, but instead is designed to act as a sensor expansion board for any Arduino Portenta or Arduino MKR development board. As a result, there's no micro-USB connection; the board relies entirely on its host Portenta or MKR for power and communications.

Once connected to a suitable host, the Nicla Sense Env adds three Renesas sensors to the mix, all targeting environmental monitoring: a calibrated ultra-low-power HS4001 temperature and relative humidity sensor, a ZMOD4410 indoor air quality (IAQ) and total volatile organic compounds (TVOCs) gas sensor, and a ZMOD4510 nitrogen dioxide and ozone gas sensor. These sensors are brought to the host board over a five-pin ESLOV interface, though there are castellated pin headers for manual wiring or surface-mount installation too.

The Nicla Sense Env is now available to order on the Arduino store, priced at $39; remember that you'll need a Portenta or MKR development board too, if you don't already have one.