The Map Block on Adafruit IO used to show where one sensor was on a map, and the a value it produced. What if you wanted to build a mobile weather station on a bicycle, or a robot with multiple sensors? Last week, the adafruit.io team has deployed a large update to the Map Block for Adafruit IO Dashboards that addresses feedback from users and gives it new features for your next IoT project.
Here’s what you need to know…
More Feeds per Map Block
Previously, the map block could only display the location and value for one Adafruit feed. The map block can now display up to 5 feeds per map block.
To differentiate between the feeds, we added a selectable color for the feed name and a custom map markers (with ten icons to pick from) for each feed. If you have a mobile project, like an Air Quality sensor mounted to a bicycle or drone, this helps visualize the path it took as well as the values at each location.
Pop-ups (with Feed History) for Each Data Point
We’ve also updated what happens when you click on a data point. Since Adafruit IO feeds can store data from sensors for up to 60 days, we needed a way to show not just the current reading and its metadata but the historical values. When you click on a data point, it’ll show the feeds associated with it, their current value, and a link to view the historical readings. When the location is on a tight range, we now combine data markers on data points to show all data points in the same popover.
Paths and Scaling
Sensors can be easily mounted to cars, quadcopters, or a robot. So, we’ve updated the map block to support IoT projects that are on the move. The map block can now display path lines. A new feature, follow feed, can automatically move the map to each new data point (you can toggle this off.
Finally, adding GPS data via our API endpoint is sometimes a bit difficult. We’ve also added the ability to publish data to any of the 5 feeds in the map with a custom value and location by clicking on the map
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![hierarchical FPGA utilization map for the BIO implementation on a Digilent Arty (XC7A100T), total design: 41,757 cells. the BIO block (bio_apb, highlighted in magenta outline) consumes 14,597 cells... roughly 35% of the design. inside, four PicoRV32 cores (mach[0] through mach[3]) range from 1,698 to 1,937 leaf cells each... compact enough that all four together barely exceed a single PIO state machine's ~5,000 cell footprint. the host CPU (VexRiscvAxi4) sits at 8,017 cells including caches, with the remaining area eaten by AXI crossbars, bus adapters, and bridge logic. compare this to the PIO utilization map shown earlier in the post, where the PIO alone consumed 39,087 cells and dominated the floorplan... the BIO achieves a richer RV32E instruction set in less than 40% of the PIO's area. the visual tells the RISC-vs-CISC story immediately: four full CPU cores plus bus infrastructure, and you're still smaller than nine custom instructions with barrel shifters.](https://cdn-blog.adafruit.com/uploads/2026/03/bio-only-utilization.jpeg)
