What is the RADiuS? It's an Open Hardware Arduino-compatible shield for the Easy Radio Advanced RF Module.

If you visit SparkFun, Adafruit Industries, or the Seeed Studio website... you'll see that they all offer a plethora of Bluetooth, Nordic, ZigBee, and other RF products.

...no Easy Radio? Really?

I've been using Easy Radio for a little over five years now... it's a fantastic RF / wireless solution ( I'll share the story of how I stumbled onto it later ). All you need is power, ground, and two wires and you have reliable bi-directional communication between microcontrollers, desktops, laptops, or whatever. No frustrations over pairing, no twiddles with configurations, and it's approved for use in Europe, North America, and Asia.

I'm surprised that none of these popular DIY suppliers have caught the Easy Radio bug! To help spread the news... I've decided to share my shield design as Open Hardware.

FYI, I've tested the Easy Radio with Arduino, Arduino UNO, Arduino MEGA, several Arduino clones, Netduino, and FEZ Domino. If it runs between 3 - 5 volts and can 'talk' serial... done deal.

What next? My original design was pretty plain... so... I've added a few more bell-and-whistles.

Hopefully Kickstarter will accept my proposal. If they do... the RADiuS will become the first Easy Radio Advanced platform for hobbyists world-wide.

Features:

• high-quality 1/4 wave antenna
• durable SMA connector
• power indicator
• busy indicator
• tx / rx indicator
• configurable for pins 0/1 or 2/3 via shorting-jumper
• custom pin assignment possible via wire-jumper
• connect other devices via FT232RL
• backward compatible shield pinouts

Want to build one on your own? Here's the bill of materials - knock yourself out!