SparkFun RedBoard Qwiic

At SparkFun we continually like to innovate, update, and improve even when it comes to our very own development boards. We have multiple versions of the SparkFun RedBoard in our catalog but none of them in an R3 form factor with a Qwiic connector on it to make I2C easy... until now! The SparkFun RedBoard Qwiic is an Arduino-compatible development board that uses a few of the features that we have loved about Arduinos of the past while also incorporating a few key improvements over the original RedBoard. The best part about the RedBoard Qwiic is that (as the name implies) it utilizes our handy Qwiic Connect System which means no soldering or shields are required to connect it to the rest of your system!

Of course, we didn't just add a Qwiic Connector to the board, lets go over all the new additions that make the SparkFun RedBoard Qwiic unique! With the improved AP2112 voltage regulator, this Reboard gains a more robust 3.3V regulator that provides it more power to daisy chain multiple Qwiic boards and sensors, sourcing up to 600mA of current. To help support the micro USB connector (updated from a Mini USB), the CH340C Serial-USB converter IC allows the RedBoard Qwiic should reduce the need for you to manually install drivers allowing for newer operating systems to automatically recognize and install the drivers for the board. Lastly, we have made sure to add a few solder jumpers to the board. The jumpers for the A4 and A5 pins are tied directly to the I2C bus and can be used to disconnect the logic level converters from the pins while the voltage level jumpers can switch the RedBoard Qwiic from a 3.3V device to a 5V device (no logic level converter needed).

The SparkFun RedBoard Qwiic can be programmed over a USB Micro-B cable using the Arduino IDE: Just plug in the board, select "Arduino UNO" from the board menu and you're ready to upload code. RedBoard Qwiic has all of the hardware peripherals you know and love: 20 Digital I/O pins with 6 PWM pins, UART, SPI and external interrupts. We've also broken out the SDA, SCL and IOREF pins that showed up on the UNO R3, so the RedBoard Qwiic will be compatible with future shields (if you choose to use them). You can power the SparkFun RedBoard Qwiic over USB or through the barrel jack. The on-board power regulator can handle anything from 7 to 15VDC. Check out the related items below for a compatible wall-wart power supply.


The SparkFun Qwiic Connect System is an ecosystem of I2C sensors, actuators, shields and cables that make prototyping faster and less prone to error. All Qwiic-enabled boards use a common 1mm pitch, 4-pin JST connector. This reduces the amount of required PCB space, and polarized connections mean you can’t hook it up wrong.


  • ATmega328 microcontroller with Optiboot (UNO) Bootloader
  • CH340C Serial-USB Converter
  • AP2112 Voltage Regulator
  • A4/A5 Jumpers
  • 3.3V to 5V Voltage Level Jumper
  • Input voltage - 7-15V
  • 1 Qwiic Connector
  • 20 Digital I/O Pins (6 PWM Outputs and 6 Analog Inputs)
  • ISP Header
  • 32k Flash Memory
  • 16MHz Clock Speed
  • All SMD Construction
  • R3 Shield Compatible
  • Improved Reset Button

SparkFun RedBoard Qwiic Product Help and Resources

How to Install CH340 Drivers

August 6, 2019

How to install CH340 drivers (if you need them) on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.

SparkFun Qwiic Alphanumeric Display Hookup Guide

October 21, 2021

A Hookup Guide to get you started with the Qwiic Alphanumeric Display.

Air Velocity Sensor Breakout - FS3000 Hookup Guide

September 23, 2021

Get started with the Air Velocity Sensor Breakout - FS3000!

SparkFun Qwiic MicroPressure Hookup Guide

July 23, 2020

Get started using your Qwiic MicroPressure breakout board with this hookup guide.

Displaying Your Coordinates with a GPS Module

April 30, 2019

This Arduino tutorial will teach you how to pinpoint and display your GPS coordinates with a press of a button using hardware from our Qwiic Connect System (I2C).

SparkFun Indoor Air Quality Sensor - ENS160 (Qwiic) Hookup Guide

November 11, 2022

Is your air safe? Check your eCO2, TVOC, and AQI levels with the new SparkFun Indoor Air Quality Sensor - ENS160!

Qwiic Proximity Sensor (VCNL4040) Hookup Guide

February 28, 2019

The SparkFun Qwiic Proximity Sensor is a great, qualitative proximity (up to 20 cm) and light sensor. This hookup guide covers a few examples to retrieve basic sensor readings.

Qwiic Joystick Hookup Guide

February 21, 2019

Looking for an easy way to implement a joystick to your next Arduino or Raspberry Pi project? This hookup guide will walk you through using the Qwiic Joystick with the Arduino IDE on a RedBoard Qwiic and in Python on a Raspberry Pi.

RedBoard Qwiic Hookup Guide

January 10, 2019

This tutorial covers the basic functionality of the RedBoard Qwiic. This tutorial also covers how to get started blinking an LED and using the Qwiic system.

Dialog ULP WiFi DA16200 R3 Shield Hookup Guide

October 7, 2021

Add WiFi to your project with this hookup guide for our Dialog's Ultra Low Power DA16200 R3 shield!

Capacitive Touch Slider (CAP1203) Hookup Guide

May 30, 2019

An easy and Qwiic way to add capacitive touch to any of your projects using the CAP1203! In this guide, we go over how to connect and set up your Capacitive Touch Slider so you can start playing with it right away.

SparkFun Inventor's Kit Experiment Guide - v4.1

August 8, 2019

The SparkFun Inventor's Kit (SIK) Experiment Guide contains all of the information needed to build all five projects, encompassing 16 circuits, in the latest version of the kit, v4.1.2 and v4.1.

Basic LED Animations for Beginners (Arduino)

December 3, 2019

Let's have some fun with LEDs! We'll explore LEDs once again with the SparkFun RedBoard Qwiic, making cool effects, and putting those effects to work using a sensor.

Qwiic 12-Bit ADC Hookup Guide

May 23, 2019

Need to add more analog inputs for your project? Check out the Qwiic 12-bit ADC.

SparkFun Qwiic Digital Temperature Sensor - TMP102 Hookup Guide

March 26, 2020

Get started using your SparkFun Digital Temperature Sensor - TMP102 (Qwiic) with this Hookup Guide!

APA102 Addressable LED Hookup Guide

October 8, 2019

Connect, power, and control your APA102 addressable LED strip!

Power Delivery Board - USB-C (Qwiic) Hookup Guide

February 13, 2020

This guide will go over how to use the USB Type-C Power Delivery Board.

Qwiic GPS Clock

September 14, 2020

What time is it? Time for you to... Qwiic-ly build a GPS clock and output it to a display! This project provides you with the current date and time using GPS satellites. Read the date and time as a digital or analog clock. Or even configure the clock for military, your time zone, or automatically adjust the time for daylight savings time!

SparkFun Temperature Sensor - STTS22H (Qwiic) Hookup Guide

January 19, 2023

Get started with the ultralow-power, high-accuracy, qwiic-enabled SparkFun Temperature Sensor - STTS22H!

Qwiic Micro Magnetometer - MMC5983MA Hookup Guide

July 21, 2022

Let's figure out where we're going with the SparkFun Qwiic Micro Magnetometer - MMC5983MA!

Qwiic 6DoF - ISM330DHCX Hookup Guide

July 15, 2022

Get started with the Qwiic 6DoF ISM330DHCX Breakout Board!

Qwiic 9DoF - ISM330DHCX, MMC5983MA Hookup Guide

July 28, 2022

Find all your degrees of freedom with this little Qwiic breakout board combining the ISM330DHCX 6Dof and the MMC5983MA Magnetometer!

Core Skill: Programming

If a board needs code or communicates somehow, you're going to need to know how to program or interface with it. The programming skill is all about communication and code.

2 Programming

Skill Level: Rookie - You will need a better fundamental understand of what code is, and how it works. You will be using beginner-level software and development tools like Arduino. You will be dealing directly with code, but numerous examples and libraries are available. Sensors or shields will communicate with serial or TTL.
See all skill levels


Core Skill: Electrical Prototyping

If it requires power, you need to know how much, what all the pins do, and how to hook it up. You may need to reference datasheets, schematics, and know the ins and outs of electronics.

2 Electrical Prototyping

Skill Level: Rookie - You may be required to know a bit more about the component, such as orientation, or how to hook it up, in addition to power requirements. You will need to understand polarized components.
See all skill levels


Comments

Looking for answers to technical questions?

We welcome your comments and suggestions below. However, if you are looking for solutions to technical questions please see our Technical Assistance page.

  • PSmith / about 3 years ago / 1

    Well how about that? I got my Redboard Qwiic a few days ago, installed the drivers, plugged the board into USB...and got a "device has malfunctioned" error. So I reinstalled the drivers thinking that was the problem, but no luck. So I put it aside for a couple of days, and then tried it on a different computer with exactly the same results. - And then it occurred to me to try a different USB cable - Yup, that was the problem. Once I used a good cable, both the Redboard came up properly right away on both computers. Nice little board, and quite easy to use. I've been using Arduinos for about 12 years, and I'm really impressed at how sleek they are now.

  • If it wouldn't be too much trouble, could you replace the voltage selection solder jumper with either a small switch or a header that accepts a jumper in one of two positions (in the next revision)? Solder jumpers make it too easy to create unintended circuits once they have been switched more than once due to residual solder.

    • santaimpersonator / about 4 years ago / 1

      I would recommend throwing a comment on the BlackBoard product page (the BlackBoard gets revised more frequently), that would probably be the best route to possibly get that change. If there is a lot of customer feedback, I'm sure the design change will be made in the next revision.

  • Member #1002490 / about 4 years ago / 1

    Arduino IDE "Port" cannot locate the RedBoard Qwiic even FTDI driver 2.4.2 installed on my Mac Pro, anyone can help with this ?

    • santaimpersonator / about 4 years ago * / 1

      Hey there, it looks like you are looking for some technical assistance. Please post a new topic on our forums for assistance from our technical support team. They will do their best to assist you.

      Otherwise, this board uses a CH340 driver, which there are files and instructions for in the hookup guide. Additionally, if you would like to download them from the manufacturer, here is the resource page.

  • Member #886636 / about 5 years ago * / 1

    Great improvements guys! Firstly the upgraded 3.3v reg, about time! The quick connector for I2C is great as well. There is a few of things I'v always missed on standard arduinos. I would like a product that works as a permanent device so I can just buy 5-10 of them and use them in 80% of all my projects, without customization. Call it "Red board pro" :D

        • Replace the headers with Poke-home connectors or similar so wires wont come loose.
        • Mosfets, I think most ppl wants to control something either at more than 40 mA or at higher than 5v. To buy a sheild/do perfboard magic just to toggle a 12v, 30 mA panel light is a bit cumbersome.
    • 2.1 - Make Vin 7-24v, lots of applications uses 24v.
    • 2.2 - 3 small n-channel mosfets like FDV303N (0.05 USD on reel) to drive loads up to 700mA. With jumper to select 5v or Vin.
    • 2.3 - 1 DRV8803 or similar 4 channel driver, for coils, relays, unipolar stepmotors, dc-motors etc (1.5 USD on reel). With over current/temp protection, protective diodes etc.

    Arduinos are made to be just for prototyping and works great but when everything is tested and a permanent setup is needed, you pretty much have two options; run with a janky arduino-perfboard setup or design and order a real pcb (which often feels overkill). So if you guys could create a better permanent option that'd be great! And thanks for keeping everything open source and putting so much work into your eagle libraries, I learned a lot from it back in school!

    • The Hoff / about 5 years ago / 2

      Sorry for the delay in responding.

      Really appreciate the feedback. We are always looking to make improvements to designs to make our customers lives easier. While we are not looking to update this design immediately(we just released it!), we will revisit your feedback when we look at updating the features to this board.

      Glad you've been able to learn from our online sources. Being open source encourages people to share and learn from each other. It also forces us to focus on what we do best and constantly innovate.

    • santaimpersonator / about 5 years ago / 1

      These are great suggestions, you should leave a comment on SparkFun BlackBoard product page. SparkX is more R&D focused and may adapt some of your requests (not guaranteed to happen).

      Although it has yet to be implemented, the USB-C feature on that BlackBoard allows for greater flexibility in sourcing power. I know they were at least looking to upgrade the fuse or create a bypass jumper for users to source more power through the USB-C connection.

Customer Reviews

4.3 out of 5

Based on 18 ratings:

Currently viewing all customer reviews.

2 of 2 found this helpful:

Familiar RedBoard Now with Qwiic. And A USB Headache!

Having discovered the Redboard Qwiic uses the CH340 USB interface I set about installing the CH340 Device Driver on a Dell XPS8930 (as I had done earlier for the FTDI Device Drivers) No Luck! Following the SFE Tutorial and various posts online and YouTube, I was stumped.

After much time invested, I took a closer look at the RedBoard Qwiic hardware.

Not all of the USB-A to USB Micro B cables work, the three I had tried earlier are all "Bad" (even though they work on other USB hardware)

The CH340 seems very fussy about cable length (compared with the FTDI version) Even moving a "good cable" from one example of RedBoard Qwiic to a second one causes the second one to fail to connect. The most reliable cable is not the shortest that I have (1m) but the longest on hand (7m)

On the RedBoard schematic I don't see any build-out resistors between the USB connector and the CH430 IC, but there are 27R resistors and 47p capacitors on the earlier RedBoard version (using FTDI IC)

SFE Engineering was this intentional?

3 of 3 found this helpful:

The arduino swiss knife

What can I say about a near perfect arduino board. The support is great, I like the 3.3V regulator which give plenty power for attached devices. If you ask me to be picky: Maybe put a jumper to disconnect the D13 LED?

1 of 1 found this helpful:

QWIIC and easy

works as expected for an Arduino board, and the QWIIC connection makes setting up an I2C bus easy - no more messing with wires and pullups.

None of the problems mentioned by Member #299089, mine worked great out of the box.

1 of 1 found this helpful:

Trouble At First, But Works

Massive problems out of the box. Not immediately recognized by Windows, and had to peruse the little traveled inter-spaces just to find out the solution was to download a driver called CH31SER.zip. That took most of my day to find because tech support is not available on the weekend... which is when I received my product (which took 20 days to get to me... not exaggerating). So, minus one star for not being ready to use out of the box, and having a very obscure fix.

Works just like an Arduino once you get it working, so big plus! Here's a star for that.

Qwiic seems to function properly, if you can get the libraries to work the first time. Had some trouble with that, but good thing I'm persistent. Minus a star for inconsistent library function.

I really like the lack of through-pins on the back side. Makes it easy to mount and prototype. It seems faster than the normal Arduino, too, but that could just be my imagination. Tried several standard sketches and some very Arduino specific ones, and it works like a champ. Two stars for compatibility and design!

Overall, I still recommend, but beware if you get one like mine. The driver issues I had were solved, once I found a solution, however it was not a widely recognized solution. Also, the driver problem was due to a serial chip not manufactured in the US, and therefore not part of the normal driver update. This should have been either pre-loaded, or part of the tutorial. Sad face.

I am still happy with the product, but unhappy with my lost day trying to find a solution. Also, not completely happy about the Qwiic problems I have had. Especially, because I bought it for Qwiic connections.

If you are interested in a superior Arduino-type product, then this is definitely what you are looking for, but be aware of potential problems out of the box. If you have said problems, then then be ready to burn some midnight oil fixing them.

Would still buy it again, even knowing all of this.

Great board, bad jumpers

I love this board for having everything a generic beginner project may need, specially the QWIIC functionality.

But the I/O jumper is not easy to solder for newbies and I already burned the pads trying to do so. Maybe an actual jumper would be worth the cost? I have ordered 2 more so I can try to do it correctly this time!

Not buying any more of these

I bought two of them. One of them went belly up, and I didn't to anything untoward to it either. Even the Atmel ICE pod does not recognize the MCU anymore. Don't know what happened there.

But the big problem however is the cheap CH340 USB interface on this board. It does not report a serial number and this causes big headaches with Windows. Plug it into a new USB port and there's differen COM port number. Plug two of them in at the same time and you cannot easily tell which is which.

I mostly wanted a 3.3V Uno running at 16MHz so that part is fine. However, the CH340 is enough of a headache that I won't be buying any more of these.

Documentation for Mac OS/X outdated

The product works well and does what it should.

On Big Sur and Monterey, the drivers are not required. Moreover, it takes a bit of searching to find that you cannot execute Board Info from the IDE and you get an error which seems like the kernel drivers aren't installed. On Big Sur/Monterey, the kernel driver for the USB is not required.

Also, the board is recognized as an Uno. It took a bit of searching to find this.

Solid hardware but missing some crucial information

The reason for selecting the RedBoard is simple: it provides a USB-micro connector unlike the ordinary UNO with it's bulky version. I learned the hard way, that the space of a device extends at least 1" on the sides on which there is a connector.

The device run out of the box and i had no problem to load software using the Arduino IDE 1.8.16. What gave me some hard time is to design a support piece on which I could mount the hardware. I had to measure the positions of the mounting holes with paper, pencil, and a ruler!. It's one thing to provide the board size and mounting hole locations in a EAGLE or DXF file but it's completely different thing to provide the same information as a technical drawing in a PDF file, which can be read and used without any costly 3rd party software. All this fancy design software like EAGLE or Autodesk programs are able to produce such a PDF file, so why is it missing? Make a guess!

An other information missing is that the board doesn't provide much meaningful data when using the 'Get Board Info' in the Arduino IDE. Just a few cryptic and therefore meaningless hex numbers doesn't cut it, I expect at least something informing me that the device is Arduino UNO compatible.

It's a good device but it has room for improvement.

Great board

Qwiic connector

This board is excellent for development and first prototype validation

Interfacing with all the Sparkfun Qwiic boards is painless. The available I/O and enhanced power supply make it easy to launch into a project.

Great way to get started

Great board with enough functionality to do many cool, beginner projects with my son. Tutorials/materials online were super helpful to get set up initially and now we can start to branch out with its flexibility.

Versatile

Getting the RedBoard Qwiic was my first foray into microcontrollers. I'm an intermediate programmer but never really learned C, so the combination was intimidating. My goal is to put together a controller for the real project: an attached greenhouse. While I'm about to move from block work to stone work and then to moving dirt, on rainy days I have been able to connect temperature sensors (via I2C and 1-wire) and a display. Soon I'll connect a PWM duct fan and control speed based on temperatures. The code libraries and examples are awesome. I just wish there were about double the memory space. Nice work SparkFun!

No good

The SparkFun RedBoard Qwiic can't connect to the IDE running under Lnux on "Ubuntu 22.04.2 LTS"

The product can work within one hour as the instructions are very clear!

Works as advertised, QWIIC is great & a good price

The convivence of the QWIIC is well worth having a Red board instead of a Blue one.

Perfect for one-off projects that need to go together quickly

I had to assemble a system to take physical input and output a result on a very tight deadline. I decided to measure the input by weight, using this and the QWIIC Scale board. Between the two of these and the libraries provided for using them, I had a working prototype in only a few hours of work. These two products were perfectly matched to my application.

Good but -- won't upload sketches consistently

I work on linux and have the ch340 driver. Uploads typically fail unless I hold the board in reset manually and release it at random intervals while it retryies 10 times. When I magically hit an unknown window the upload works. I learned this trick via a google search so it happens to others as well. Seems solvable.

A couple of things could be causing your issue. Can you try the board in Windows with the driver we link to in the hookup guide to see if everything is working there?

If things work in Windows, chances are the driver you're using in linux may have an issue with how it handles the DTR line. (Apple computers sometimes have a similar issue with FTDI drivers)

If you're still having trouble in Windows, there's probably a issue with the USB to serial chip. If that's the case, fill out the form on this page and we will work with you on a resolution.