TinyPICO Is a Pint-Sized ESP32 Development Board Packed with Extra Features

Espressif ESP8266 WiFi-enabled development boards have been the go-to choice for makers looking to bring Internet connectivity to their projects for years now. The ESP32 is even better, because it adds Bluetooth, more memory, and a faster dual-core processor. Despite those advantages, the ESP32 still hasn’t gained quite the popularity that the ESP8266 has. That’s likely because the choices in development boards leave something to be desired. But that’s changing now that TinyPICO has launched on Crowd Supply.

A couple of months ago we coveredTinyPICO when its creator, Unexpected Maker, was gearing up for the Crowd Supply launch. Now the campaign is in full swing, and has raised nearly $20,000 in funding. As the name suggests, TinyPICO is incredibly small — arguably the world’s smallest fully-featured ESP32 development board — and it measures just 18 x 32 mm. That’s roughly the size of two postage stamps sitting side by side. That means you can easily fit TinyPICO into even the smallest projects in order to gain all of the benefits of the ESP32.

But the TinyPICO doesn’t just give you access to the ESP32's I/O pins, it integrates a handful of additional features as well. It has an extra 4MB of PSRAM, doubling the original amount, which makes it equivalent to WROVER boards. There is also an onboard power regulator and LiPo battery management circuit, which will save you even more space in your projects. The pin layout is breadboard-friendly, and the board comes with MicroPython pre-installed. If you want, you can even use the Arduino IDE or Espressif IDE to program it.

The campaign is running until June 20th, and backers can get a single TinyPICO for $26. Orders will ship on July 25th.