Whether you are new to the world of electronics, or a seasoned professional, shields can be one of the most useful tools available when working with a prototyping development board, especially if it’s an Arduino. This video will help you understand what a development board shield actually is, as well as see some of our favorite shields that are currently available and compatible with Arduino boards.
What is an Arduino Shield used for?
One of the greatest things about shields is that you can find them for some of the most popular development boards in the industry, which makes prototyping much faster in the long run. As it stands, there are tens of thousands of available accessories for the top 3 development boards in the industry. What this means is that there is nearly unlimited possibility for designing just about any application you can dream up. Ultimately, shields make the design process extremely easy.
To bring back the analogy of the athlete, imagine you want to go skiing. Well, an athlete would have a very hard time skiing without the proper equipment like skis and cold-weather clothing. The same holds true for development boards. Imagine you wanted to make a motion detecting light switch with an Arduino. Well, you will likely need to have a shield that enables motion detection and power distribution, all of which is controlled by the Arduino behind the scenes. The real value of development board shields is that they make implementing components like motion detection and power distribution nearly immediate, because all of the hardware is ready to plug-and-play.
To show a few of our favorite shields currently available, it is also important to understand that shields can be very different in complexity, application, and capabilities.
Arduino Compatible Shields
One of my personal favorites is the 1sheeld+ for iOS and Android. This shield plugs directly into an Arduino Uno and connects directly to your mobile phone via their app and allows you to play with over 40 different features. These applications range from sensing, communication, social media, face recognition and many more exciting features.1Sheeld provides example code for every single one of their applications, which makes getting started possible in less than 20 minutes. This shield is seriously awesome!
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On the simpler side of the spectrum, the TE Connectivity Weather Shield allows users to easily connect their Arduino to a few exciting sensors. TE designed their board to showcase their variety of different digital relative humidity sensors and barometric pressure sensors as well as a thermopile sensor, all of which combine to give the designer feedback about the environment. TE also provides all the code needed to flash to your Arduino to begin using it immediately. You can use this shield to turn your Arduino into a greenhouse monitoring device, a mini-weather station, and much more!
The last one worth highlighting is a very industry related development board from Analog Devices, which features an ultra low-power accelerometer and a small screen. This shield teeters more towards a true development board, as it was designed to help users understand the multitude of functions and power capabilities of their single ADXL362 MEMS accelerometer.
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Obviously, all of these shields are drastically different, but that is what makes them impactful. The 1sheeld+ serves the purpose of being a bridge between an entry level microcontroller and your smartphone, which makes it extremely consumer friendly for those who want to dabble in electronics. The TE weather shield is a nice middle ground between a consumer ready board and a true development board, as it can serve as a development tool or an application solution. And the Analog Devices accelerometer shield is a tried and true development shield that is perfect for those that want to create a prototype while considering a custom development solution down the line. Regardless, shields are extremely useful for all walks of life and are a great place to get started in the world of Arduino or other development platforms.