The MKR WIFI 1010 is a significant improvement on the MKR 1000 WIFI. It's equipped with an ESP32 module made by U-BLOX. This board aims to speed up and simplify the prototyping of WiFi based IoT applications thanks to the flexibility of the ESP32 module and its low power consumption.

The board is composed of three main blocks:

• SAMD21 Cortex-M0+ 32bit Low Power ARM MCU;
• U-BLOX NINA-W10 Series Low Power 2.4GHz IEEE® 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi; and
• ECC508 Crypto Authentication. (datasheet)

The MKR WIFI 1010 includes 32-bit computational power, the usual rich set of I/O interfaces, and low power Wi-Fi with a Cryptochip for secure communication using SHA-256 encryption. Plus, it offers ease of use Arduino Software (IDE) for code development and programming. All of these features make this board the preferred choice for the emerging IoT battery-powered projects in a compact form.

Its USB port can be used to supply power (5V) to the board. It has a Li-Po charging circuit that allows the Arduino MKR WIFI 1010 to run on battery power or an external 5 volt source, charging the Li-Po battery while running on external power. Switching from one source to the other is done automatically.

Warning: Unlike most Arduino boards, the MKR WIFI 1010 runs at 3.3V. The maximum voltage that the I/O pins can tolerate is 3.3V. Applying voltages higher than 3.3V to any I/O pin could damage the board. While output to 5V digital devices is possible, bidirectional communication with 5V devices needs proper level shifting.