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Espruino is a JavaScript interpreter for low-power Microcontrollers. This site is both a support community for Espruino and a place to share what you are working on.
the1laz
It's mainly power consumption - neopixels actually draw quite a bit of power even when off, and you want the maximum efficiency with a small battery. Also, if I went with an RGB module, they're often taller, and harder to source.... Going with 0603 LEDs means I have loads of choice and it's much less likely I'll have trouble getting parts when manufacturing.
Also, nRF52 has loads of pins that I have no hope of all breaking out, so I can afford to use them for different things :) for instance one for powering the magnetometer so it can be turned off when not in use.
The capacitive sensing is using the NFC aerial (which is a ring around the edge of the board) as a capacitive sensor - so there's an extra pin used with a feed resistor. I haven't properly tested it yet so I'm not 100% sure how good it'll be, so I'm trying not to make too big a deal out of it - but if it works well enough it might even be able to measure soil moisture (coarsely) :)