LilyGO T-Dongle-S3 is a USB dongle based on ESP32-S3 dual-core microcontroller with WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity, a microSD card slot, as well as an optional 0.96-inch color display.
You may remember the company launched the T-Dongle ESP32-S2 last spring, and I first thought it was an update to ESP32-S3, but the new T-Dongle-S3 has quite more compact design and a smaller set of features that makes it suitable for data logging and displaying basic information over a wireless connection.
T-Dongle ESP32-S2 development board specifications:
- Wireless SoC – Espressif Systems ESP32-S3 with
- Dual-core 32-bit Xtensa LX7 microcontroller up to 240MHz
- RISC-V ULP Co-processor
- 512KB SRAM
- 2.4GHz Wifi 4 (802.11b/g/n)
- Bluetooth 5.0 BLE + Mesh
- Storage
- 4 MB flash (or 16MB flash depending on where you look)
- MicroSD card socket cleverly “hidden” under the USB connector
- Display – Optional 0.96-inch 65K color IPS LCD (ST7735 SPI controller) with 160 x 80 resolution
- USB – 1x USB Type-A male port for power and programming
- Antenna – Ceramic antenna
- Misc – Boot button, RGB LED
- Power Supply – 5V via USB male port
- Dimensions – 58.6 x 17.9 x 8.7 mm
The company provides samples for the Arduino IDE/PlatformIO that include the factory testing program checking out the display, microSD card, and WiFi, as well as Arduino sketches to test the TFT display and use the dongle as a mass storage device. Some MicroPython code is also available, but mostly for the display with samples to display text, sprites, a clock, and some simple games. You’ll find those together with the PDF schematic on GitHub.
LilyGO is selling the T-Dongle-S3 on Aliexpress for $14.98 without the display, and $15.98 with it.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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