Adafruit has unveiled one other new entry in its Metro household of Arduino UNO type issue growth boards, and this time it is the Espressif ESP32-S3’s time to shine: meet the Metro ESP32-S3.
“What’s Metro-shaped and has an ESP32-S3 WiFi module? What has a STEMMA QT connector for I2C units and a Li-poly charger circuit? What has your favourite Espressif WiFi microcontroller and plenty of reminiscence to your subsequent IoT undertaking,” Adafruit rhetorically asks by the use of introduction for its new board. “That is proper — it is the brand new Adafruit Metro ESP32-S3!”
The Espressif ESP32-S3 module on the coronary heart of the board packs two 32-bit Tensilica Xtensa LX6 cores operating at as much as 240MHz, a Wi-Fi radio, and Bluetooth Low Vitality (BLE) capabilities, together with 512kB of static RAM (SRAM), 8MB of pseudo-static RAM (PSRAM) and 16MB of flash storage for packages. To this, Adafruit has added a Metro provider — that means a footprint and pin-out which mimics the favored Arduino UNO.
Elsewhere on the board is a USB Kind-C connector for knowledge and energy, a battery connector with charging circuit for non-obligatory lithium-polymer batteries, a microSD slot for storage, bodily reset and boot-mode buttons, a JTAG header, non-obligatory serial debug pins, and a STEMMA QT connector for growth with I2C units.
The Metro ESP32-S3 comes lower than a month after Adafruit unveiled the Metro RP2040, which — as its identify suggests — makes use of a dual-core Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller as its coronary heart. This, in flip, adopted on from the Metro M7, based mostly on NXP’s i.MX RT1011 “crossover microcontroller unit” — providing a way more highly effective tackle the Arduino UNO type issue, which itself has since been up to date with the discharge of the modernized UNO R4 Minima and WiFi.
The board mimics the pinout and footprint of the favored Arduino UNO vary, with a choice of added extras. (📷: Adafruit)
In keeping with Adafruit’s inside testing, the board is well-suited to low-power initiatives. “In deep sleep mode we will get right down to ~100µA of present draw from the Li-poly connection,” the corporate claims. “Quiescent present is from the ability regulator, ESP32-S3 chip, and Li-poly monitor. Flip off the NeoPixel and exterior I2C energy for the bottom quiescent present draw.”
The board is listed on the Adafruit retailer at $24.95 earlier than quantity reductions, however on the time of writing had not but gone up on the market.