Embedded and hobbyist {hardware} specialist Seeed Studio has introduced new expansions for its XIAO microcontroller growth boards, together with a breadboard energy provide with built-in show and an ePaper driver board.
“We have heard from our neighborhood concerning the restricted variety of suitable add-on modules for our tiny however highly effective Seeed Studio XIAO boards. Beginning 2025, we’re addressing this by growing extra XIAO add-ons,” says Seeed’s Lily Li of the corporate’s newest launches. “For our first product assortment of the yr, we’re introducing a brand new relay, ePaper Driver Board, growth board, and sensor – all suitable with Seeed Studio XIAO boards!”
Seeed Studio is increasing its XIAO ecosystem with new add-on boards, together with the pictured ePaper show driver. (📷: Seeed Studio)
Seeed’s XIAO growth boards are named “small” in Chinese language, and so they dwell as much as the identify: whereas being breadboard-friendly, every growth board is roughly thumb-sized — and but contains USB connectivity for energy and knowledge, together with 0.1″ pin headers for its general-purpose enter/output (GPIO) pins. It is these latter that additionally play host to a small however rising variety of add-on boards, designed to host a XIAO and develop on its inventory capabilities.
The primary of Seeed’s new add-on boards is the ePaper Driver Board, which delivers precisely what you’d anticipate: the {hardware} to regulate certainly one of plenty of electrophoretic ePaper shows — a know-how that makes use of energy solely when altering states, and which might retain the final picture proven even when powered off. The board features a 24-pin flat versatile circuit (FFC) connector suitable with a variety of monochrome and multicolor ePaper panels as much as a 7.5″ mannequin with 800×480 decision, and features a two-pin JST connector and charging circuit for an non-compulsory battery.
The corporate’s second add-on board is a straightforward 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 growth board of the brand new vary, was a collaboration between Seeed and a Westlake College pupil: a compact sensor board for sensor logging, that includes an NXP PCF8563 real-time clock (RTC), Sensirion SHT40 temperature and humidity sensor, and a voltage divider for battery monitoring.
The most important of the brand new boards is the PowerBread, a sensible energy provide for breadboard tasks. (📷: Seeed Studio)
The final of the brand new add-on boards, and in addition the most important, can be a collaborative effort, developed by maker Nicho Deng: the XIAO PowerBread, a sensible breadboard energy provide with real-time monitoring by way of an on-board show. “[It is] designed to supply a dependable and environment friendly energy answer for breadboard prototyping,” Deng says of the system. “That includes built-in sensors, real-time monitoring, and compatibility with Seeed Studio XIAO microcontrollers, PowerBread makes powering and growing electronics tasks simpler than ever.”
The brand new add-on boards have been listed on the Seeed retailer 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 earlier than quantity reductions; consumers are suggested to examine compatibility with their explicit XIAO board earlier than shopping for.
