Wemos' LOLIN C3 Mini Is a Pin-Compatible RISC-V Alternative to the Earlier D1 Mini
Powered by a 160MHz RISC-V processor with 400kB of SRAM and 4MB of flash, the new LOLIN C3 Mini is a powerful alternative to the D1.
Wemos has announced a new board in the LOLIN family, this time building it around the Espressif ESP32-C3 microcontroller and its 32-bit RISC-V processor: the LOLIN C3 Mini.
Designed for general development projects where Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.0 Low Energy (BLE) connectivity is required, the compact LOLIN C3 Mini — brought to our attention by CNX Software — uses a USB Type-C connector for power and data while bringing its general-purpose input/output (GPIO) pins to breadboard-friendly headers at either side.
The heart of the development board is the Espressif ESP32-C3, a chip designed as a drop-in replacement for the ESP8266 and offering a single-core 32-bit RISC-V processor core running at up to 160MHz, 400kB of static RAM (SRAM), and 4MB of flash storage.
The on-board radio includes 802.11b/g/n 2.4GHz Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.0 Low Energy (BLE) connectivity, using a PCB antenna located at the top end of the board opposite the USB connector. There are two physical buttons — one to reset the board, the other to trigger DFU boot or for use as a user-addressable input — and a single user-addressable LED, plus 12 other GPIO pins in total.
Wemos isn't the only company working on compact development boards built around the Espressif ESP32-C3: Earlier this week Adafruit showed off the first production units of its upcoming QT Py ESP32-C3, while the chip can be found on the heart of the LILYGO T-32C3, M5Stack Stamp-C3, and the Picoclick C3T.
The new board, which is pin-compatible with the earlier Wemos LOLIN D1 Mini, is now available to order from AliExpress at $4.10 a unit; more information is available on the Wemos wiki — including instructions for using the board with the Arduino IDE or MicroPython.