Seeed's Growing XIAO Family Gets Matter Support with New XIAO MG24 Boards, Powered by SiLabs

Embedded and hobbyist electronics specialist Seeed Studio has announced two new entries in its ironically-large small-format XIAO microcontroller development board family: the XIAO MG24 and XIAO MG24 Sense, both powered by Silicon Labs' EFR32MG24 and delivering native support for the Matter home automation protocol.

"When Silicon Labs' EFR32MG24 came into our view, we were immediately excited by its enormous potential to make the promising Matter wireless communication protocol accessible to ALL – perfectly aligning with Seeed's vision of Making Technology Accessible for ALL," says Seeed's Lily Li of the launch. "Matter connects IoT platforms and smart home devices across different brands, bridging the gap between different ecosystems like Amazon, Google, and Apple. This new industry-unifying standard provides reliable connections and simplifies development for makers."

The Seeed Studio XIAO MG24 and XIAO MG24 Sense are, as the name suggests, entries in the company's XIAO family of thumb-sized microcontroller development boards, offering the familiar breadboard-friendly form factor with a USB Type-C connector for data and power. At their heart is the Silicon Labs EFR32MG24, a system-on-chip packing a single 32-bit Arm Cortex-M33 core running at up to 78MHz and featuring digital signal processing (DSP) extensions, 256kB of static RAM (SRAM), and 1,536kB of flash memory. An integrated radio supports Bluetooth 5.3 Low Energy (BLE) and IEEE 802.15.4 Thread — the latter delivering Matter compatibility too.

To this, Seeed has added an additional 4MB of off-chip flash storage, a user-addressable LED, and has brought out 19 general-purpose input/output (GPIO) pins of which 11 are available on the castellated 0.1" pin headers at either side of the board. The XIAO MG24 Sense stands out from its non-Sense sibling through the addition of two on-board sensors: an analog microphone and a six-axis inertial measurement unit (IMU). Both boards include an integrated battery management system, delivering a boosted charging current of 160mA.

"Seeed Studio has consistently delivered innovative and cost-effective hardware solutions that empower developers around the globe," says Silicon Labs' Rob Shane of the companies' partnership. "We are thrilled to collaborate with them on the XIAO MG24 boards, which integrate our EFR32MG24B220F1536IM48-B chip. This partnership not only broadens the reach of our technology but also aligns with our vision of fostering a vibrant developer community. We look forward to seeing the creative and impactful applications that will emerge from this collaboration."

The XIAO MG24 and MG24 Sense are available on the Seeed Studio store, priced at $7.90 and $10.90 respectively; the first 100 orders will receive a ten per cent discount, Seeed has confirmed, with hardware due to ship at the end of November. The parts are also included in the company's Early Adopter Program, which provides two free sample boards to authors and maintainers of open-source Matter and Internet of Things (IoT) projects.