Seeed Studio Launches Compact RISC-V XIAO ESP32-C3 for Battery-Powered Wearable and IoT Projects
Hot on the heels of a full-range rename, the XIAO ESP32-C3 has a single 32-bit 160MHz RISC-V core, 400kB of SRAM, and battery support.
Seeed Studio has announced a new entry to its XIAO family of compact microcontroller development boards, this time choosing the RISC-V-based Espressif ESP32-C3 system-on-chip to power what it has unsurprisingly called the Seeed Studio XIAO ESP32-C3.
"Like a Thumbelina carrying a complete Wi-Fi system along with Bluetooth Low Energy [BLE] function," the company writes of its latest product design, "the Seeed Studio XIAO ESP32-C3 has launched!"
Designed in the tiny XIAO footprint, the microcontroller board offers a single-core 32-bit RISC-V processor running at up to 160MHz, 400kB of static RAM (SRAM), 4MB of flash, and integrated 2.4GHz Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) connectivity. Its general-purpose input/output (GPIO) pins, castellated and unpopulated for use with a breadboard, flying wires, or installation into a carrier as a module, total 11 all with pulse-width modulation (PWM) support and with four supporting analog inputs, and single UART, I2C, I2S, and SPI buses.
A major feature of the board is its integrated power management capabilities, including the ability to charge lithium-ion batteries from the USB Type-C data and power connector or a directly-wired power supply. According to Seeed's testing, the device draws just 44μA in its deepest sleep mode rising to 3.6mA or 9.7mA for light-sleep with Wi-Fi or Bluetooth enabled respectively and 24.4mA and 26.8mA if it is expected to respond to connections on either.
To encourage adoption of the part, Seeed has suggested two potential projects: A "smart private garage," in which two XIAO boards communicate to open a garage door based on proximity; and a "remote forest tracker," which can be placed on a pet for location tracking and that leans on Grove LoRa-E5 and GPS add-ons for geolocation and long-range communications respectively.
The launch comes hot on the heels of a full-range renaming, with Seeed Studio having announced this week that it's dropping the Seeeduino name on the entire XIAO family. Along with this, the company is making it clearer as to the microcontroller powering each device: What was the Seeeduino XIAO is now the Seed Studio XIAO SAMD21, for example."
The XIAO ESP32-C3 is now available to pre-order on Seeed Studio's website at an aggressively-priced $4.99 before volume discounts, with shipping expected to begin in mid-August.