Just to expand on what Juraj said, the u-blox NINA W102 module on the board is an ESP32.
DryRun:
There is no mention of BLE or bluetooth, and i think this is a BIG mistake especially since the board supports it and this feature should definitely be stated on the 'Overview' page and not just mentioning 'Wi-Fi' since it easily misleads into believing that there is no Bluetooth support and we'll just click away to somewhere else to find a Bluetooth-supported Arduino board.
It actually used to say that, but that was before there was any Bluetooth support in the firmware (it was of course supported in the hardware for anyone who wanted to supply their own firmware) and someone complained about it. I guess they removed mention of Bluetooth from the description in response to that complaint. You'll notice that in the thread Juraj linked they say it's "initial" Bluetooth support and the library is in beta. So it may be that they want to wait for the support to be more stable before making any claims about Bluetooth. Arduino users tend to have an expectation that a very beginner friendly experience will be provided, not a "well the hardware supports it, read the datasheet and good luck to you".
DryRun:
i'm not sure if i'm allowed to mention ESP here? if not, i will edit my post
Sure, you can mention ESP here. We have thousands, of threads on this forum dedicated to exclusively to providing support for ESP8266 and ESP32, as well as much other 3rd party hardware.
DryRun:
How does Arduino co-exist with ESPs
Well, you could certainly say they're co-existing quite well right there on several of Arduino's newest boards! I do get what you're saying though. I think there are a couple factors that can lead people to chose official Arduino hardware:
Great support: There is an expectation that when you buy an official Arduino board, you are getting high quality hardware with excellent support. I mean several things when I say "support":
- Customer support (meaning that if something goes wrong with your order or you receive a damaged product, the issue will be resolved promptly and professionally).
- Official documentation
- Official software support: Hardware core and libraries.
- Community support: 3rd party libraries, example sketches, forum help, tutorials, youtube videos, etc.
If you compare the support for an ESP32 board you buy from Aliexpress to an Arduino Uno purchased from the Arduino Store, there is no contest. Sure, the Uno is 5X more expensive and has less performance and features, but for a beginner it can be well worth spending an extra $20 and doing without some features and performance you don't need anyway in exchange for a gentle learning curve. This is especially true for people who aren't born highly motivated genius engineers, for whom a bad initial experience could easily make the difference between a long rewarding journey of learning and an initial frustrating experience which causes them to decide microcontrollers are not their thing.
When it comes to the brand new Arduino boards, the distinction is not so clear cut. Community support takes time. If you come here with a question about an Uno, you're going to get immediate help from multiple people. If you have a question about an Arduino Pro Gateway, you might not get any response because likely none of the forum regulars even own or even know what it is. Likewise with a Google search. Official documentation and software support also takes time. Arduino needs to balance the need to get the support stable against the need to get the products out on the market before the competition is thoroughly established. It's a delicate balance. For an experienced user, getting a board when the official support is still in a beta stage is great because it means we have an opportunity to contribute to the development work. But for a beginner who thinks "I want to buy an Uno, but why not spend a little bit more to get one with WiFi?", without realizing what they're getting themselves in for, it's not an ideal situation.
The other factor, which I've already mentioned, is that buying Arduino boards supports Arduino. As long as Arduino continues doing good things, there will be people who will want to support that.