pin,a built-inSDcardcontroller,capacitive
touchsensinganda Hallsensortoboot.
Sofar,soESP32.WheretheM5Stick-C
buildsonitsrivalsisbyslappinga bootload
of extras on top, and in a chassis measuring
just 48 x 24 x 14mm. Within those diminutive
dimensions is an 80mAh lithium polymer
battery for on-the-go use, a USB Type-C
port for charging and data, a six-axis inertial
measurement unit (IMU), a 0.96in colour
160 x 80 LC, a red LED, an infrared LED,
a microphone and a Grove-compatible
expansion socket. There’s also a general-
purpose input/output (GPIO) header with
access to 5V in and out, 3.3V, direct battery
connection, and three spare GPIOs.
That’s already a long list, but there’s more.
The battery is charged through a power-
management integrated circuit (PMIC), which
is available for software control, allowing you
to query the current charge or discharge rate as
well as the temperature. There are even three
buttons: one to control the power, a large face
button under the M5 logo, and a smaller button
on the side as a secondary input. If that weren’t
enough, M5Stack has even found room for a
small magnet that allows the M5Stick-C toCUSTOMISATION/ HOBBYTECH
W
hileArduino-branded
microcontrollerscontinuetoprove
popular,hobbyistsona budgethave
begun lookingatdevicesbasedontheESP
family of devices. In particular, the ESP32
and ESP8266, the latter of which redefined
what you can expect from a board costing
as little as £2 with built-in Wi-Fi and
Bluetooth connections.
With the core ESP hardware costing
so little money, it’s no surprise to see a
secondary market of ESP-powered gadgets
cropping up, and the M5Stack range may
well encompass the most impressive
examples. The M5Stick-C, as reviewed, is
a microcontroller development kit based
around the ESP32, but expanded to tick almost
all the boxes anyone could hope to tick.
The core microcontroller is a Tensilica
LX6 running at 240MHz, offering 520KB
of static RAM (SRAM) and expanded with
4MB of flash storage. As with other devices
in the ESP range, it includes integrated
802.11b/g/n 2.4GHz Wi-Fi, as well as
both Bluetooth Classic and Bluetooth
Low Energy (BLE). It has pulse-width
modulation (PWM) on every available GPIOREVIEW
M5Stick-C
Clever side buttons, plus a
single face button, provide
some measure of controlA little chunky, perhaps, but if you
want a watch that turns heads, the
M5Stick-C could fit the billIt’s small and colourful, plus
there’s a lot crammed into
its diminutive dimensions