“These little microcontrollers are great, I use them all the time. Buying from a reputable company like Pihutgives me the piece of mind that I'm not going to get any cheap alternatives turn up.”
“Pros:
Extremely small footprint for the performance it provides.
USB-C
Good documentation, although sometimes you have to go digging through forums and Reddit to find more detailed information.
Plenty of designs for 3D printable cases on Printables, Makerworld, Thingiverse, etc.
Fully supported by ESPHome, ESPresence, etc.
Decent amount of exposed IO. You aren't getting all of the available IO of the ESP32-C3 chip, but enough for a single-purpose project board.
Plenty of addon modules/HATs in the Seeed/Xiao ecosystem to choose from.
Cons (more like gotchas, really):
Flashing it over a USB cable can be finicky for two reasons:
1. Depending on the state of the unit, it can sometimes not show in available devices, or allow you to connect until you've hard reset it or forced it into Download Mode (Hold 'boot', hold 'reset', release 'reset', release 'boot').
2. After flashing, the unit can get stuck in Download Mode but there's no clear guidance on what to do about it (hit the Reset button or power cycle it).
The WiFi range is pathetic without the external antenna attached. Bluetooth is okay, but good luck getting it to connect to an AP in the next room over without the antenna. Fortunately, it comes with an antenna, which isn't obvious from the product description.
Incapable of USB-PD negotiation, so might refuse to be powered by a PD-capable supply.”
“Using these to run WLED and they work brilliantly. Their small size makes them easy to tuck behind picture frames, etc. Honestly incredible how much power is packed into these thumbnail sized boards”
“Excellent little devices. Only used one so far, but no problems once the correct arduino IDE setup had been achieved! Used as the controller for an altitude meter. The Pi Hut responce on ordering was fast and acurate.”
“Excellent esp32-c3 boards with a surprisingly good antenna (external). I'm basically a fan of the Seeed XIAO boards, which seem very well made and reliable. The order was not quite as cheap at Seeed themselves, but about 2 weeks faster shipping!”
