The board combines dual RISC-V processing, wireless connectivity and MIPI interfaces, with open design files for hardware customisation
SparkFun has introduced its IoT RedBoard, a development board built around Espressif’s ESP32-P4 and ESP32-C5 chips. It combines processing capabilities with wireless connectivity, making it suitable for embedded systems and human-machine interface (HMI) projects.
The ESP32-P4 processor works at a clock speed of 400 MHz and processes various applications such as images and sounds. On the other hand, the ESP32-C5 is responsible for wireless communications such as dual-band Wi-Fi 6 and 5 GHz, Bluetooth 5 LE, and Zigbee. The board is also equipped with 32MB of PSRAM, 16 MB of flash memory, and a microSD card.
Its hardware design exposes several interfaces for building custom projects. These include MIPI connectors for cameras and displays, two USB-C ports for serial/JTAG programming and high-speed USB OTG, a Qwiic connector and the familiar RedBoard/R3 expansion headers. A JST connector also supports a single-cell LiPo battery, with onboard charging and battery monitoring.
SparkFun provides KiCad schematic and PCB design files in the project repository. Developers can inspect the board layout, understand how its components are connected and use the designs as a starting point for their own hardware. The repository also includes Arduino board support files, installation scripts and patches for the ESP32-C5 wireless interface.
The board comes preloaded with MicroPython and also supports Espressif’s ESP-IDF and the Arduino IDE. However, the standard Arduino ESP32 Core version 3.3.12 does not yet natively support the board’s ESP32-C5 wireless co-processor. SparkFun provides a temporary software patch while upstream support is being developed.
The ESP32-P4 and ESP32-C5 Wi-Fi/BLE version is listed at US$49.95. SparkFun also offers a separate PoE variant of the RedBoard, which uses wired Ethernet instead of the wireless companion.
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