adhere to many metal surfaces without the
need for permanent mounting hardware.
In short, the M5Stick-C is a bit of a beast
- at least, in microcontroller terms. All the
features in the world are useless without
the software to back it up, though, and here
M5Stack has had a head start over its rivals.
The ESP microcontroller family is already
popular enough to have had a range of
software projects ported across to it, including
MicroPython, Arduino and even JavaScript.
Sadly, here’s where it starts to fall apart. The
hardware side of the M5Stick-C is undeniably
impressive, although a little more attention
to assembly to avoid the off-centre and
bruised display of our review sample would
be good to see. The software side, however,
is poorly documented and difficult to access.
It gets off to a poor start at the beginning –
the documentation on the M5Stack website
is available only for Windows and macOS
users; people running Linux are left to their
own devices. Thankfully, the
instructions for adding
support for the
M5Stick-C to
Despite its bulk, the M5Stick-C
is surprisingly comfortable when
fitted to the bundled watch strapInits‘wearable’bundleform,theM5Stick-C
includesa watchstrap,wall-mountand
Lego-compatiblemountingclipsA handy, though off-centre,
sticky label on the bottom
marks all the GPIO pins
MakerMediacloses its doors
Maker Media, the company behind MAKE: Magazine and the popular Maker Faire series
of events (see Issue 155 for a field report from Maker Faire UK 2016), has laid off its staff
and ceased operations. ‘Maker Media Inc ceased operations this week and let go of all of
its employees — about 22 employees,’ chief executive
Dale Dougherty told TechCrunch of the closure. ‘I started
this 15 years ago and it’s always been a struggle as a
business to make this work. Print publishing is not a great
business for anybody, but it works, barely. Events are
hard. There was a drop-off in corporate sponsorship.’N EWS I N BRI EF
the Arduino-IDE are platform-agnostic,
although not labelled as such. Once it’s
configured, it gives you the usual ESP32
examples plus a range of M5Stick-C specific
programs. Code is provided to handle the
buttons, LEDs and display, with the latter
including projects that draw Spirograph-style
images or generate a user-configurable,
and just-about-scannable, QR Code.
Not all the projects work, however.
What should have been the most notable
one, a clone of one-button reaction
game Flappy Bird, fails to run correctly
and turns what is already a frustrating
game into Mission Impossible.
For the educational market, M5Stack has
its own block-based visual programming
environment, dubbed UIFlow. Using the
UIFlow firmware – flashable only from
Windows or macOS – it’s possible to
program the M5Stick-C in a drag-and-drop
environment, or switch to Python, directly
in the browser. It’s an approach borrowedfrom a range of rival devices, including
the BBC micro:bit, but its implementation
isn’t great: there’s little documentation
explaining how to get started, and pulling
up the required ‘API Key’ – actually a unique
reference code for the M5Stick-C you
want to program – could be easier too.
All can be forgiven, however, with a look
at the price. Purchased from m5stack.com,
the M5Stick-C costs just $9.95 US with a
bundled USB Type-C cable or $11.95 US
with watch strap, wall-mount and Lego-
compatible clip as reviewed (around £7.85
and £9.40 respectively exc VAT). Another
kit with environment sensor and speaker
‘hat’ add-ons - no relation to the Raspberry
Pi’s HAT standard – is available for $15.90
US (around £12.50 exc VAT). At those
prices, it’s a toy that’s hard to turn down.