Adafruit QT Py ESP32 Pico

by Adafruit

Image of Board

This dev board is like when you’re watching a super-hero movie and the protagonist shows up in a totally amazing costume in the third act and you’re like ‘OMG! That’s the hero and they’re here to kick some serious butt!” but in this case its a microcontroller.

This QT Py board is a thumbnail-sized PCB that features the ESP32 Pico V3 02, an all-in-one chip that has an ESP32 chip with dual-core 240MHz Tensilica processor, WiFi and Bluetooth classic + BLE, adds a bunch of required passives and oscillator, 8 MB of Flash memory and 2 MB of PSRAM. We add a USB to serial converter chip, some more passives, an antenna, USB C, buttons, NeoPixel and QT connector to outfit this super-hero chip for any task you want to throw it at.

At the core of ESP32-PICO-V3-02 is the ESP32 (ECO V3) chip, which is a single 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi and Bluetooth combo chip designed with TSMC’s 40 nm low-power technology. ESP32-PICO-V3-02 integrates all peripheral components seamlessly, including a crystal oscillator, flash, PSRAM, filter capacitors, and RF matching links in one single package. This makes it perfect for stuffing into such a small space as the QT Py.

Please note the QT Py ESP32 Pico does not have native USB support - instead there’s a USB to serial converter chip. This means it cannot act like a USB keyboard or mouse - but it does have BLE and BT classic so you could wireless.

OLEDs! Inertial Measurement Units! Sensors a-plenty. All plug-and-play thanks to the innovative chainable design: SparkFun Qwiic-compatible STEMMA QT connectors for the I2C bus so you don’t even need to solder! Just plug in a compatible cable and attach it to your MCU of choice, and you’re ready to load up some software and measure some light. Seeed Grove I2C boards will also work with this adapter cable.

Pinout and shape are Seeed Xiao compatible, with castellated pads. In addition to the QT connector, we also added an RGB NeoPixel (with controllable power pin to allow for ultra-low-power usage), a reset button (great for restarting your program or entering the bootloader), and a button on GPIO 0 for entering the ROM bootloader or for user input

Runs Arduino like a dream, or use the ESP IDF for more control over your projects.

  • Same size, form-factor, and pin-out as Seeed Xiao
  • USB Type C connector - If you have only Micro B cables, this adapter will come in handy!
  • ESP32 V2 03 Dual Core 240MHz Xtensa processor - the ESP32 you know and love, with the latest engineering fixes. Massive user base and thousands of existing projects and libraries to use.
  • WiFi, Bluetooth LE and Classic for any IoT project usage
  • 8 MB Flash & 2 MB PSRAM
  • USB to Serial converter built in with high speed UART for debugging and uploading.
  • Can be used with Arduino IDE or MicroPython
  • Built-in RGB NeoPixel LED with power control to reduce quiescent power in deep sleep
  • Battery input pads on underside with diode protection for external battery packs up to 6V input
  • 13 GPIO pins:
    • 11 on breakout pads, 2 more on QT connector
    • 10 x 12-bit analog inputs
    • Dual 8-bit analog output DACs on A0/A1
    • PWM outputs on any pin
    • Two I2C ports, one on the breakout pads, and another with STEMMA QT plug-n-play connector
    • Hardware UART in addition to the USB-serial UART
    • Hardware SPI on the high speed SPI peripheral pins
    • Hardware I2S on any pins
    • 8 x Capacitive Touch with no additional components required
  • 3.3V regulator with 600mA peak output
  • Light sleep at 4mA, deep sleep at ~70uA
  • Reset switch for starting your project code over, boot 0 button for entering bootloader mode or for user reading
  • Really really small

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CircuitPython 9.0.4

This is the latest stable release of CircuitPython that will work with the Adafruit QT Py ESP32 Pico.

Use this release if you are new to CircuitPython.

Release Notes for 9.0.4

DOWNLOAD .BIN NOW

Built-in modules available: _asyncio, _pixelmap, adafruit_bus_device, adafruit_pixelbuf, aesio, alarm, analogbufio, analogio, array, atexit, audiobusio, audiocore, audiomixer, binascii, bitbangio, bitmaptools, board, builtins, builtins.pow3, busdisplay, busio, busio.SPI, busio.UART, canio, codeop, collections, countio, digitalio, displayio, dualbank, epaperdisplay, errno, espcamera, espidf, espnow, espulp, fontio, fourwire, framebufferio, frequencyio, getpass, gifio, hashlib, i2cdisplaybus, io, ipaddress, jpegio, json, keypad, keypad.KeyMatrix, keypad.Keys, keypad.ShiftRegisterKeys, locale, math, mdns, memorymap, microcontroller, msgpack, neopixel_write, nvm, onewireio, os, os.getenv, ps2io, pulseio, pwmio, qrio, rainbowio, random, re, rotaryio, rtc, sdcardio, select, sharpdisplay, socketpool, ssl, storage, struct, supervisor, synthio, sys, terminalio, time, touchio, traceback, ulab, vectorio, warnings, watchdog, wifi, zlib

CircuitPython 9.1.0-beta.1

This is the latest development release of CircuitPython that will work with the Adafruit QT Py ESP32 Pico.

Alpha development releases are early releases. They are unfinished, are likely to have bugs, and the features they provide may change. Beta releases may have some bugs and unfinished features, but should be suitable for many uses. A Release Candidate (rc) release is considered done and will become the next stable release, assuming no further issues are found.

Please try alpha, beta, and rc releases if you are able. Your testing is invaluable: it helps us uncover and find issues quickly.

Release Notes for 9.1.0-beta.1

DOWNLOAD .BIN NOW

Built-in modules available: _asyncio, _pixelmap, adafruit_bus_device, adafruit_pixelbuf, aesio, alarm, analogbufio, analogio, array, atexit, audiobusio, audiocore, audiomixer, binascii, bitbangio, bitmapfilter, bitmaptools, board, builtins, builtins.pow3, busdisplay, busio, busio.SPI, busio.UART, canio, codeop, collections, countio, digitalio, displayio, dualbank, epaperdisplay, errno, espcamera, espidf, espnow, espulp, fontio, fourwire, framebufferio, frequencyio, getpass, gifio, hashlib, i2cdisplaybus, io, ipaddress, jpegio, json, keypad, keypad.KeyMatrix, keypad.Keys, keypad.ShiftRegisterKeys, keypad_demux, keypad_demux.DemuxKeyMatrix, locale, math, mdns, memorymap, microcontroller, msgpack, neopixel_write, nvm, onewireio, os, os.getenv, ps2io, pulseio, pwmio, qrio, rainbowio, random, re, rotaryio, rtc, sdcardio, select, sharpdisplay, socketpool, ssl, storage, struct, supervisor, synthio, sys, terminalio, time, touchio, traceback, ulab, vectorio, warnings, watchdog, wifi, zlib

Absolute Newest

Every time we commit new code to CircuitPython we automatically build binaries for each board and language. The binaries are stored on Amazon S3, organized by board, and then by language. These releases are even newer than the development release listed above. Try them if you want the absolute latest and are feeling daring or want to see if a problem has been fixed.

Previous Versions of CircuitPython

All previous releases of CircuitPython are available for download from Amazon S3 through the button below. For very old releases, look in the OLD/ folder for each board. Release notes for each release are available at GitHub button below.

Older releases are useful for testing if you something appears to be broken in a newer release but used to work, or if you have older code that depends on features only available in an older release. Otherwise we recommend using the latest stable release.