Lumination Labs' Sonatino Is a Raspberry Pi Zero-Sized Espressif ESP32 Board for Audio Work
With support for 192kHz 24-bit audio in and out, an amplifier, microSD storage, and battery charging, the Sonatino packs in the features.
Lumination Labs is hoping to put its new Sonatino at the heart of your next audio project — offering an Espressif ESP32-based compact development board with integrated 192KHz 24-bit sound support and an on-board 2.4W speaker amplifier.
"I've been building stuff with ESP32 for a while now and kept wanting to use it for audio projects," Lumination's anonymous founder explains of the board's origins. After making a few projects with generic ESP32 dev boards and adding separate modules for DAC [Digital to Analog Converter], amplifier, battery charging, etc., I decided to make a small, self-contained ESP32 audio dev board with those features built-in."
The result is the Sonatino, which hosts a compact Espressif ESP32-S3 module with 512kB of static RAM (SRAM), 512kB of on-chip flash, plus 2MB of pseudo-static RAM (PSRAM) and 16MB of external flash along with a dual-core Tensilica Xtensa LX7 processor running at up to 240MHz and an ultra-low-power RISC-V coprocessor. A radio, connected to a PCB antenna, offers 2.4GHz 802.11/b/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5 Low Energy (BLE) connectivity with support for Bluetooth Mesh.
It's what Lumination has added outside the core module that makes the Sonatino what it is, though. A matched pair of analog to digital and digital to analog converters (ADC and DAC) provide support for stereo audio output and mono audio input at up to 192kHz 24-bit, with a tip-ring-ring-sleeve (TRRS) jack for easy connectivity. There's an on-board speaker amp, pushing 2.5W at 4Ω or 1.5W at 8Ω, and a microSD slot for audio storage.
Elsewhere on the board is a USB Type-C port with power and data connectivity, including JTAG-over-USB for debugging, which in turn feeds a battery charging circuit for on-the-go projects. There's a physical reset button, a user-addressable blue LED, and pots for speaker volume and gain on the microphone pre-amp — along with a general-purpose input/output (GPIO) block breaking out 13 pins plus power.
"I've had a ton of fun designing it (it's the first time I've designed a PCB to sell), and I've also found it incredibly useful for audio-related projects," Lumination's founder says. "Since it's the same size as a Raspberry Pi Zero, it also fits into some existing Pi Zero cases. I'm currently having it manufactured in low quantities, so the price is a bit higher than I'd like, but if there's demand for it, I'm sure I could produce more and be able to sell it for less."
More information on the board is available on the Sonatino website, with sample projects available on GitHub under the permissive MIT license. The Sonatino is currently being sold via Amazon for $49.99.