WeAct ESP32-C6-Mini is the cheapest ESP32-C6 board so far going for less than $4

WeAct ESP32-C6-Mini is a small development board based on Espressif Systems ESP32-C6 WiFi 6, Bluetooth, and 802.15.4 wireless SoC that’s the cheapest we’ve seen so far selling for just $3.86 on Aliexpress.

WeAct was one of the first companies to launch a third-party ESP32-C6 development board year with the price starting at just $6. I still remember the excitement around the first $5 ESP8266 WiFi 4 module when we first covered it in 2014, and ten years later, we can get a full $4 development board with a more powerful 160 MHz RISC-V microcontroller, WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.0, and an 802.15.4 radio for Thread, Zigbee, and Matter.

WeAct ESP32-C6-Mini specifications:

Wireless SoC – ESP32-C6-N4
- CPU
  - Single-core 32-bit RISC-V clocked up to 160 MHz
  - Low-power RISC-V core @ up to 20 MHz
- Memory – 512KB SRAM, 16KB low power SRAM
- Storage – 320KB ROM, and 4MB flash
- Wireless – 2.4 GHz WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.0 LE, 802.15.4 radio for Zigbee 3.0 and Thread. Matter compatible. PCB antenna
USB – 1x USB Type-C port
I/Os – 2x 16-pin headers with GPIO, UART, SPI, ADC, SDIO, USB, I2S, etc…
Misc – RESET and BOOT buttons, RGB LED
Power Supply (mutually exclusive options)
- 5V via USB-C port (recommended)
- 5V and GND pins
- 3V3 and GND pins
Dimensions – 45.1 x 20.6mm

WeAct focuses on designing and manufacturing cheap hardware, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen documentation from the company. They only say the board can be programmed with the ESP-IDF v5.1 and greater framework. However, considering it’s basically a cost and features-down version of the ESP32-C6-DevKitC-1 development kit people can use the official documentation from Espressif, and the Arduino IDE should also be supported as long as you install ESP32 Arduino Core 3.0.0 or greater.

The $3.86 price tag does not include a $0.99 shipping fee, but in my case at least (shipping to Thailand), it’s possible to get free shipping by ordering at least three boards making the order over $10.

Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)

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.