Seeed Studio Grows the Small XIAO Ecosystem with New Add-On Boards

Embedded and hobbyist hardware specialist Seeed Studio has announced new expansions for its XIAO development boards, including a breadboard power supply with integrated display and an ePaper driver board.

"We've heard from our community about the limited number of compatible add-on modules for our tiny but powerful Seeed Studio XIAO boards. Starting 2025, we're addressing this by developing more XIAO add-ons," says Seeed's Lily Li of the company's latest launches. "For our first product collection of the year, we’re introducing a new relay, ePaper Driver Board, expansion board, and sensor – all compatible with Seeed Studio XIAO boards!"

Seeed's XIAO development boards are named "small" in Chinese, and they live up to the name: while being breadboard-friendly, each development board is roughly thumb-sized — and yet includes USB connectivity for power and data, along with 0.1" pin headers for its general-purpose input/output (GPIO) pins. It's these latter that also play host to a small but growing number of add-on boards, designed to host a XIAO and expand on its stock capabilities.

The first of Seeed's new add-on boards is the ePaper Driver Board, which delivers exactly what you'd expect: the hardware to control one of a number of electrophoretic ePaper displays — a technology that uses power only when changing states, and which can retain the last image shown even when powered off. The board includes a 24-pin flat flexible circuit (FFC) connector compatible with a range of monochrome and multicolor ePaper panels up to a 7.5" model with 800×480 resolution, and includes a two-pin JST connector and charging circuit for an optional battery.

The company's second add-on board is a simple relay add-on, snapping onto a XIAO board and conecting it to a single relay rated for 10A at 250VAC. The XIAO Logger Hat, its third expansion board of the new range, was a collaboration between Seeed and a Westlake University student: a compact sensor board for sensor logging, featuring an NXP PCF8563 real-time clock (RTC), Sensirion SHT40 temperature and humidity sensor, and a voltage divider for battery monitoring.

The last of the new add-on boards, and also the biggest, is also a collaborative effort, developed by maker Nicho Deng: the XIAO PowerBread, a smart breadboard power supply with real-time monitoring via an on-board display. "[It is] designed to offer a reliable and efficient power solution for breadboard prototyping," Deng says of the device. "Featuring built-in sensors, real-time monitoring, and compatibility with Seeed Studio XIAO microcontrollers, PowerBread makes powering and developing electronics projects easier than ever."

The new add-on boards have been listed on the Seeed store priced at $4.90 for the ePaper Driver Board, $3.90 for the Relay Add-On Module, $7.99 for the XIAO Logger, and $19.99 for the XIAO PowerBread, all before volume discounts; buyers are advised to check compatibility with their particular XIAO board before buying.