HiiBot BlueFi

by Hangzhou LeBan

Image of Board

The HiiBot BlueFi is a microbit-compatible single board computer, but has enhanced computing ability, and connectivity. BlueFi uses Nordic nRF52840 (64MHz Cortex M4F, 1MB Flash and 256KB SRAM) as main processor, ESP32 (160MHz dual CPU, 4MB Flash and 520KB SRAM) as a co-processor. Features:

  • Microbit-compatible (board size, extended interface)
  • Built-in BlueTooth 5 (nRF52840) and WiFi (ESP32)
  • 2 MB of QSPI Flash storage
  • Battery Charging and 1.5A DC-DC
  • 1.3” TFT-LCD (IPS 240x240)
  • 5x Neopixel
  • 1W Speaker with class-D amplifier
  • 1x Red LED (programmable)
  • 1x White LED (programmable)
  • 2x Button (A and B) + 1x reset button
  • 1x Sound sensor (MEMS microphone)
  • 1x Integrated Optical sensor (Proximity, Gesture, Color, and Illumination)
  • 1x Temperature and Humidity sensor (SHT31-Dis)
  • 1x Magnetometer 3-axis sensor (LIS3MDL)
  • 1x 3-axis Accelerometer and 3-axis Gyroscope (LSM6DS)
  • 1x mini-Grove/Qwiic/STEMMA QT connector

The HiiBot BlueFi have a lot of sensors, vs 6-DoF motion sensor of microbit, including 9-DoF motion sensors, sound sensor, temperature & humidity sensor, and integrated optical sensor. At the same time, BlueFi have two buttons, three touchpads, and 40-Pin extended interface on the microbit.

In a variety of IoT application scenario, BlueTooth and WiFi is an integral part of the wireless connection channel. BlueTooth and WiFi be supportted at the same time on the BlueFI board. You can realize bridges, gateways and other net equipment with BlueFi.

Built-in a lot of sensors and output devices on the HiiBot BlueFi, but a low-cost SBC. Our purpose is to help you quickly realize all kinds of ideas, no trouble wiring and welding electronic components.

The most exciting part of the HiiBot BlueFi is that while you can use it with the Arduino IDE - and it’s bonkers fast when you do, we are shipping it with CircuitPython on board. When you plug it in, it will show up as a very small disk drive with code.py on it. Edit code.py with your favorite text editor to build your project using Python, the most popular programming language. No installs, IDE or compiler needed, so you can use it on any computer, even ChromeBooks or computers you can’t install software on. When you’re done, unplug the BlueFi and your code will go with you.

Easy reprogramming: the HiiBot BlueFi comes pre-loaded with the UF2 bootloader, which looks like a USB storage key. Simply drag firmware on to program, no special tools or drivers needed! It can be used to load up CircuitPython or Arduino IDE.

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Have some info to add for this board? Edit the source for this page here.

CircuitPython 9.0.4

This is the latest stable release of CircuitPython that will work with the HiiBot BlueFi.

Use this release if you are new to CircuitPython.

On nRF boards, CircuitPython 8.2.0 and later require UF2 bootloader version 0.6.1 or later. Older bootloaders cannot load the firmware. See Update UF2 Bootloader below.

Release Notes for 9.0.4

Built-in modules available: _asyncio, _bleio, _pixelmap, adafruit_bus_device, adafruit_pixelbuf, aesio, alarm, analogio, array, atexit, audiobusio, audiocore, audiomixer, audiomp3, audiopwmio, binascii, bitbangio, bitmaptools, board, builtins, builtins.pow3, busdisplay, busio, busio.SPI, busio.UART, codeop, collections, countio, digitalio, displayio, epaperdisplay, errno, fontio, fourwire, framebufferio, getpass, gifio, i2cdisplaybus, io, jpegio, json, keypad, keypad.KeyMatrix, keypad.Keys, keypad.ShiftRegisterKeys, locale, math, memorymap, microcontroller, msgpack, neopixel_write, nvm, onewireio, os, os.getenv, paralleldisplaybus, pulseio, pwmio, rainbowio, random, re, rgbmatrix, rotaryio, rtc, sdcardio, select, sharpdisplay, storage, struct, supervisor, synthio, sys, terminalio, time, touchio, traceback, ulab, usb_cdc, usb_hid, usb_midi, vectorio, warnings, watchdog, zlib

CircuitPython 9.1.0-beta.1

This is the latest development release of CircuitPython that will work with the HiiBot BlueFi.

Alpha development releases are early releases. They are unfinished, are likely to have bugs, and the features they provide may change. Beta releases may have some bugs and unfinished features, but should be suitable for many uses. A Release Candidate (rc) release is considered done and will become the next stable release, assuming no further issues are found.

Please try alpha, beta, and rc releases if you are able. Your testing is invaluable: it helps us uncover and find issues quickly.

On nRF boards, CircuitPython 8.2.0 and later require UF2 bootloader version 0.6.1 or later. Older bootloaders cannot load the firmware. See Update UF2 Bootloader below.

Release Notes for 9.1.0-beta.1

Built-in modules available: _asyncio, _bleio, _pixelmap, adafruit_bus_device, adafruit_pixelbuf, aesio, alarm, analogio, array, atexit, audiobusio, audiocore, audiomixer, audiomp3, audiopwmio, binascii, bitbangio, bitmapfilter, bitmaptools, board, builtins, builtins.pow3, busdisplay, busio, busio.SPI, busio.UART, codeop, collections, countio, digitalio, displayio, epaperdisplay, errno, fontio, fourwire, framebufferio, getpass, gifio, i2cdisplaybus, io, jpegio, json, keypad, keypad.KeyMatrix, keypad.Keys, keypad.ShiftRegisterKeys, keypad_demux, keypad_demux.DemuxKeyMatrix, locale, math, memorymap, microcontroller, msgpack, neopixel_write, nvm, onewireio, os, os.getenv, paralleldisplaybus, pulseio, pwmio, rainbowio, random, re, rgbmatrix, rotaryio, rtc, sdcardio, select, sharpdisplay, storage, struct, supervisor, synthio, sys, terminalio, time, touchio, traceback, ulab, usb_cdc, usb_hid, usb_midi, vectorio, warnings, watchdog, zlib

Absolute Newest

Every time we commit new code to CircuitPython we automatically build binaries for each board and language. The binaries are stored on Amazon S3, organized by board, and then by language. These releases are even newer than the development release listed above. Try them if you want the absolute latest and are feeling daring or want to see if a problem has been fixed.

Previous Versions of CircuitPython

All previous releases of CircuitPython are available for download from Amazon S3 through the button below. For very old releases, look in the OLD/ folder for each board. Release notes for each release are available at GitHub button below.

Older releases are useful for testing if you something appears to be broken in a newer release but used to work, or if you have older code that depends on features only available in an older release. Otherwise we recommend using the latest stable release.

Update UF2 Bootloader

Latest version: 0.8.3

The bootloader allows you to load CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino programs. The bootloader is not CircuitPython. You can check the current version of your bootloader by looking in the INFO_UF2.TXT file when the BOOT drive is visible (FEATHERBOOT, CPLAYBOOT, etc.).

It is not necessary to update your bootloader if it is working fine. Read the release notes on GitHub to see what has been changed. In general, we recommend you not update the bootloader unless you know there is a problem with it or a support person has asked you to try updating it.

On nRF boards, CircuitPython 8.2.0 and later require UF2 bootloader version 0.6.1 or later. Older bootloaders cannot load the firmware. To check the version of your board's bootloader, look at INFO_UF2.TXT when the BOOT drive is present. To update the bootloader, refer to the "Update Bootloader" page in the guide for your board, or start with this page.

After you update, check INFO_UF2.TXT to verify that the bootloader version has been updated. Then you will need to reload CircuitPython.