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Waveshare ESP32-S3-Zero by Waveshare

Tiny, but mighty! This board with a powerful ESP32-S3 MCU measures in at 24.8mmx18mm (23.5mm for just the PCB, the USB-C connector sticks out a little bit). Despite it’s small size it still exposes a wealth of GPIO connections - a whopping 34 in total. It does however have ‘only’ 4MB of Flash storage rather than the more typical 8MB found on most ESP32-S3 boards (and even 16MB on some).

  • ESP32-S3FH4R2 dual-core Xtensa® 32-bit LX7 processor - up to 240MHz
  • USB Type-C Port
  • ME6217C33M5G low dropout LDO, 800mA (Max)
  • WS2812 RGB LED
  • BOOT button Press it and then press the RESET button to enter download mode
  • RESET button
  • 34 GPIO contacts (18 available on breadboard friendly castelated edges, 16 on the bottom of the board through exposed pads)
  • 2.4G ceramic antenna
    • Supports 2.4GHz Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g/n) and Bluetooth® 5 (LE) although CircuitPython at the time of writing does not offer proper Bluetooth supports for ESP32-S3 chips, a NRF52840 based board will serve you better in that regard
  • Built in 512KB of SRAM and 384KB ROM, onboard 4MB Flash memory and 2MB PSRAM
  • Castellated module and onboard ceramic antenna, allows soldering direct to carrier boards
  • Supports flexible clock, module power supply independent setting, and other controls to realize low power consumption in different scenarios
  • Integrated with USB serial port full-speed controller, 34 × GPIO pins allows flexibly configuring pin functions
    • 4 × SPI, 2 × I2C, 3 × UART, 2 × I2S, 2 × ADC, etc.

Due to the limited flash memory available on this board it hasn’t been ‘build’ with esp-camera support - if that’s something you want to use you’ll have to roll your own build and sacrifice some other feature to make space (like the at the moment non-functional bluetooth)

Learn more

For more information please see the Waveshare product page

ESP32-S3 Zero wiki: https://www.waveshare.com/wiki/ESP32-S3-Zero

also https://www.waveshare.net/wiki/ESP32-S3-Zero

Purchase

It’s available for purchase from Waveshare directly although it can be found on certain online stores as well including amazon and aliexpress.

Contribute

Have some info to add for this board? Edit the source for this page here.

CircuitPython 9.2.8

This is the latest stable release of CircuitPython that will work with the Waveshare ESP32-S3-Zero. Use this release if you are new to CircuitPython.

Release Notes for 9.2.8

DOWNLOAD .UF2 NOW DOWNLOAD .BIN NOW
Modules included in this download _asyncio _pixelmap adafruit_bus_device adafruit_pixelbuf aesio alarm analogbufio analogio array atexit audiobusio audiocore audiomixer audiomp3 binascii bitbangio bitmaptools board builtins builtins.pow3 busdisplay busio busio.SPI busio.UART canio collections countio digitalio displayio epaperdisplay errno 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 max3421e mdns memorymap microcontroller msgpack neopixel_write nvm onewireio os os.getenv ps2io pulseio pwmio rainbowio random re rgbmatrix rotaryio rtc sdcardio sdioio select sharpdisplay socketpool socketpool.socketpool.AF_INET6 ssl storage struct supervisor synthio sys terminalio tilepalettemapper time touchio traceback ulab usb usb_cdc usb_hid usb_midi vectorio warnings watchdog wifi zlib

Included frozen(?) modules: neopixel

Features: Wi-Fi, USB-C, Breadboard-Friendly, Castellated Pads

CircuitPython 10.0.0-beta.0

This is the latest development release of CircuitPython that will work with the Waveshare ESP32-S3-Zero.

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 10.0.0-beta.0

DOWNLOAD .UF2 NOW DOWNLOAD .BIN NOW
Modules included in this download _asyncio _bleio _bleio (native) _eve _pixelmap adafruit_bus_device adafruit_pixelbuf aesio alarm analogbufio analogio array atexit audiobusio audiocore audiomixer audiomp3 binascii bitbangio bitmapfilter bitmaptools board builtins builtins.pow3 busdisplay busio busio.SPI busio.UART canio codeop collections countio digitalio displayio 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 lvfontio math max3421e mdns memorymap microcontroller msgpack neopixel_write nvm onewireio os os.getenv paralleldisplaybus ps2io pulseio pwmio qrio rainbowio random re rgbmatrix rotaryio rtc sdcardio sdioio select sharpdisplay socketpool socketpool.socketpool.AF_INET6 ssl storage struct supervisor synthio sys terminalio tilepalettemapper time touchio traceback ulab usb usb_cdc usb_hid usb_midi vectorio warnings watchdog wifi zlib

Included frozen(?) modules: neopixel

Features: Wi-Fi, USB-C, Breadboard-Friendly, Castellated Pads

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.

BROWSE S3 BROWSE GITHUB

Install, Repair, or Update UF2 Bootloader

Latest version: 0.35.0

The UF2 bootloader allows you to load CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino programs. The bootloader itself is not CircuitPython. On Espressif boards, the UF2 bootloader is called TinyUF2. If the TinyUF2 bootloader is installed, you can check its version by looking in the INFO_UF2.TXT file when the BOOT drive is visible (FTHRS2BOOT, MAGTAGBOOT, HOUSEBOOT, etc.)

In general, it is not necessary to update TinyUF2 at every version change. You can read the release notes on GitHub to see what has been changed. Update if you've been told about a necessary change or a bug fix.

Note: CircuitPython 10 and later, on Espressif boards with 4MB flash, requires TinyUF2 0.33.0 or later. The flash partition layout has changed (details).

If TinyUF2 has never been installed on the board, or it was removed by erasing or overwriting the flash, it must be installed in order to flash .uf2 files onto the board. But you don't need the TinyUF2 bootloader to upload .bin files. They can be uploaded using the built-in ROM bootloader, with the Adafruit WebSerial ESPTool or esptool.py.

Warning: Installing the TinyUF2 bootloader will erase everything that was previously on the board. Save any files in CIRCUITPY for which you don't have backups.

There are several ways to install the TinyUF2 bootloader on your board. Check to see if your board's manufacturer provides specific instructions. For Adafruit boards, consult the Factory Reset page in the Learn Guide for your particular board (example).

The easiest way to install TinyUF2 is to use the OPEN INSTALLER button (see above, in the CiruitPython sections). You can also use the Adafruit WebSerial ESPTool, or esptool.py, as described in the Factory Reset page.

  • If you are not using the OPEN INSTALLER button, download the combined.bin file using the DOWNLOAD BOOTLOADER combined.bin button below. (If you use OPEN INSTALLER, it will do the download itself.)
  • First, place board in ROM bootloader mode:
    • Plug board into a USB port on your computer using a data/sync cable. Make sure it is the only board plugged in, and that a charge-only cable is not being used.
    • Press and hold the BOOT button (sometimes marked "B0").
    • Press and release the RESET button (sometimes marked "RST").
    • Release the BOOT button. This starts the ROM bootloader.
  • Then proceed with OPEN INSTALLER or one of the other tools.
  • After the TinyUF2 firmware installation is complete, press the RESET button on the board. A new drive BOOT drive should be visible in your file browser.

    • After installing TinyUF2, enter the UF2 bootloader by double-clicking the RESET button. On boards with an RGB status LED, you usually tap reset once, wait for the LED to turn purple, and tap again before the purple goes away. On other boards, consult the board documentation.

    If you are updating TinyUF2, look at INFO_UF2.TXT to verify the new version of TinyUF2, by checking the version number. Then you will need to copy the CircuitPython.uf2 file to the BOOT drive.