DFRobot has launched a brand new FireBeetle 2, swapping out the unique design’s Espressif ESP32-S3 chip for the RISC-V-based ESP32-C6 — which brings with it help for Wi-Fi 6 (IEEE 802.11ax) alongside Bluetooth 5 and IEEE 802.15.4 connectivity.
“The FireBeetle 2 ESP32-C6 is a low-power IoT (Web of Issues) controller board designed primarily based on the ESP32-C6 chip, making it appropriate for sensible house tasks,” DFRobot writes of the brand new mannequin, dropped at our consideration by Linux Gizmos. “The ESP32-C6 contains a high-performance 160MHz RISC-V 32-bit processor, supporting communication protocols comparable to Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5, Zigbee 3.0, and Thread 1.3. This allows seamless integration into IoT networks with numerous communication protocols.”
DFRobot has launched a brand new entry in its FireBeetle 2 line, primarily based round Espressif’s ESP32-C6 chip. (📷: DFRobot)
The unique revision of the FireBeetle 2 launched in Could final 12 months, constructed across the Espressif ESP32-S3 — particularly, the ESP32-S3-WROOM-1-N16R8 module, providing a dual-core Tensilica Xtensa LX7 CPU operating at as much as 240MHz, 512kB of on-chip SRAM and 8MB of off-chip pseudo-static RAM (PSRAM), 384kb of on-chip flash and 16MB off-chip.
The ESP32-C6, in contrast, is a single-core half, ditching the proprietary Xtensa LX7 structure for a core constructed across the open RISC-V structure operating at as much as 160MHz.
The newer Espressif chip additionally consists of 512kB of static RAM (SRAM), 320kB of flash plus 4MB off-chip, and 22 general-purpose enter/output (GPIO) pins together with a 12-bit analog to digital converter (ADC) — of which 19 pins are introduced out on the FireBeetle 2 board, to breadboard-friendly castellated headers additionally appropriate for surface-mounting the system as a module.
The corporate is positioning the board as best for low-power sensible house tasks, like plant monitoring. (📷: DFRobot)
The place DFRobot positioned the unique FireBeetle as best for on-device machine studying, or tinyML, tasks, the brand new mannequin is proffered as an answer for the sensible house — and the corporate’s eager to level out the ESP32-C6’s help for Espressif’s Matter library, although Matter compatibility is reliant on connection to an exterior Matter gateway.
The board will also be used for transportable tasks, because of a battery connector and charging circuit with photo voltaic harvesting help, and features a GDI connector for a show — although no digicam connector this time round.
The FireBeetle 2 ESP32-C6 is now accessible on the DFRobot retailer for $5.90 earlier than quantity reductions, a substantial low cost over the ESP32-S3 variant at $19.90 — a worth which does, admittedly, together with an Omnivision OV2640 digicam sensor.