hey guys Ravi here and this is the best
development board that I have ever used
called the m5stack this tiny module has
an ESP32, a 2 inch color LCD, a 1 watt
speaker, a battery, a micro SD card reader
and three built-in buttons of course
since it has an ESP32 as a brain it has
Wi-Fi Bluetooth and all the other cool
stuff that comes with it but what makes
this module so awesome is not what's in
it but how it all has been packaged the
whole thing is a 5 centimeter square of
hard plastic all around with the  a acrylic
front the left side has the power slash
reset button the USB C port and a groove
compatible I2C breakout the
right side has the speaker grill while
the bottom has the microSD card slot now
you might have noticed the array of
headers on all sides of the module that
I haven't addressed yet this is where
the largest selling point of the m5
comes in the device is meant to be
modular or stackable as they are calling
it so you can swap out the bottom for
different modules for different
functionality the default configuration
that it comes with is this bottom that
extends the ESP32's GPIO to female
headers on the bottom and left and into
male headers on the top and right while
this is good enough for quick breadboard
work you can go way way more advanced
than that to get you started they give
you this protoboard that comes in the
box
I made this gamepad controller to play
the game of snake that I wrote but the
creators of the board have featured a
ton of really cool modules like a full
QWERTY keyboard a thermal camera a relay
module a bigger better speaker an
oscilloscope
A lora module a sim model a GPS a whole
car and surely much more is to come but
in my opinion it's just better and more
fun to make your own modules and you can
take it a step further and make it more
professional by getting your own custom
PCBs from JLCPCB.com for only $2 they
currently have free shipping that you
should definitely take advantage of to
take your projects to the next level now
back to the m5 I have been playing with
this thing for a few months now and I'm
totally impressed with it having a
screen on board is a
complete godsend for debugging the library for
the m5 allows for easily controlling the
screen using the speaker taking inputs
from buttons and reading the microSD
card in the time that I have had it I
have done a few experiments controlling
other microcontrollers writing a game
for it using it as a clock and even used
it as a NES emulator everything that I
have tried has worked flawlessly and
having a battery and the whole thing
being self-contained is such a huge
convenience that I don't know how I
lived without it last but definitely not
the least is the newly released web IDE
for micro Python that is so much faster
to work with than the Arduino IDE so I
have no problem in wholeheartedly
recommending it to anyone the $35 price
tag
seems a bit much at first but I think
the features and quality of the product
completely justifies the price it's not
all sunshine and roses though I do have
a few minor complaints the first being
the speaker the sound quality is as much
as you can expect from a tiny 1 watt
speaker but what I noticed is that even
when nothing is playing on it there is a
constant hum that's there it's very quiet
and almost inaudible and can be easily
ignored I don't think the microphone can
even pick it up but it's still annoying
in quiet environments and definitely no
good for the battery life speaking of
which the built-in battery is very small
like absolutely tiny only a 150mA
it barely lasts a couple of
hours thankfully you can plug your own
battery like I have done here with
the gamepad module which lasts much much
longer on the software side the Arduino
libraries are nicely polished but I
really prefer working with the micro
Python instead on the account of it
being significantly faster to prototype
with but since that is in BETA the
documentation is lacking and the
interpreter is missing a couple of
features but regardless these are minor
complaints that I am sure would be fixed
with time there are also some little
details I noticed that I really
appreciate like how the back is magnetic
and the top also has this place for
stickers that came in the box to help
you differentiate between multiple of
these which
is a really good thing in my opinion
since I can't remember which of my nanos
blinks a LED and which one is a doomsday
device again I really like this tiny
little thing
it's compact feature-packed expandable
easy to work with and it gets my full
recommendation I'll definitely be using
it in some of my future projects let me
know in the comments below what you would
like to see me use this for next leave a
like if you can spare a second and do
subscribe if you want to see me put this
thing through its paces in the future
also check out JLCPCB.com they make
high quality PCBs for really really
cheap
