Recipe
Choose a board for a project
Use when: you are about to buy or pick a board for a specific project
Goal: a named board and variant whose datasheet confirms every requirement
Taught in Choosing a board
Quick recipe
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1
Write down what the project cannot do without: a radio, 5 V signals, a memory need, battery life, a USB feature.
Example
A greenhouse monitor: Wi-Fi, reads one 3.3 V sensor, runs from USB power.
Why: hard requirements rule boards out quickly; preferences only break ties.
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2
Strike every board that lacks a hard requirement.
Example
No radio rules out the Uno R4 Minima and the Pico 2 (non-W).
Why: no amount of library support adds a missing radio.
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3
Among what is left, pick the board with the strongest ecosystem for this kind of project.
Example
ESP32-S3-DevKitC-1: Espressif's own board, with Arduino core support and a published user guide.
Why: documentation and examples save more time than small differences in speed or price.
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4
Check each requirement against the maker's own page, and write down the exact variant you will buy.
- every requirement confirmed — buy that variant.
- a requirement only appears on a seller's listing — treat it as unconfirmed and keep looking.
Why: listings get details wrong; the datasheet is what the board is built to.
Common mistakes
- Choosing on clock speed when the project never needed it.
- Buying "an ESP32 board" without checking which chip it carries.
- Judging battery life from a dev board's current draw.