Waveshare’s ESP32-C5 Pico combines a RISC-V processor with dual-band Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth LE and 802.15.4 connectivity in a Raspberry Pi Pico-compatible board.
Waveshare has introduced the ESP32-C5 Pico, a compact development board that brings Espressif’s ESP32-C5 wireless SoC to the Raspberry Pi Pico form factor. The board uses the ESP32-C5-MINI-1 or ESP32-C5-MINI-1U module and is available with either a PCB antenna or an external antenna connection.
The ESP32-C5 includes a single-core 32-bit RISC-V processor running at up to 240 MHz, along with a low-power RISC-V core for power-sensitive tasks. The module provides 384 KB of SRAM, 320 KB of ROM and 4 MB of SPI flash. Wireless connectivity includes dual-band 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz 802.11ax Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.0 LE and an IEEE 802.15.4 radio supporting Zigbee 3.0, Thread 1.3 and Matter.
For hardware expansion, the board follows the Raspberry Pi Pico-compatible 2 × 20-pin header layout. Up to 26 GPIOs are available, along with interfaces including PWM, I2C, SPI, UART, SDIO, JTAG and four ADC channels. Six GPIOs are provided through a TCA9554PWR GPIO expander. A USB Type-C port handles power and programming, while Boot and Reset buttons and several status LEDs are also included.
The board also supports portable applications through a two-pin connector for a 3.7V lithium battery. A dedicated charging circuit handles Li-ion battery charging, while an MP1605GTF-Z synchronous buck converter accepts an input range of 2.3V to 5.5V. Waveshare provides support for both the Arduino IDE and ESP-IDF, with example projects covering Wi-Fi, UART, the GPIO expander, RGB LED, touchscreen and SPI CAN applications.
Waveshare offers four ESP32-C5 Pico variants: PCB-antenna and external-antenna versions, each available with either unsoldered or pre-soldered headers. With its Pico-compatible dimensions, RISC-V processing and support for Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth LE and 802.15.4, the board provides a compact platform for IoT, wireless networking and embedded development while retaining compatibility with the familiar Pico-style expansion format.
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