M5Stack Core2 – M5Core2

M5Stack has produced some amazing hardware. I recently got my hands on M5Stack Core2. Its compact, powerful and well built. It has plenty of Flash and PSRAM (16MB & 8MB) and 3 capacitive touch programmable buttons. Main features of Core2 are listed below.

• ESP32 – D0WDQ6-V3 (Dual core 32 bit LX6@240Mhz)
• 16MB Flash and 8MB PSRAM
• USB-C Interface for programming
• 320*240 capacitive touch screen (FT6336U) with in-built battery (390mAh)
• SD Card slot, Microphone (SPM1423), Speaker (1W NS4168)
• Vibration motor, 6 Axis IMU Sensor (MPU6886), RTC (BM8563)

The in-built battery is nice addition to the development boards. in-built battery makes it easy to prototype certain use cases. Prototyping multimedia use cases is much easier with on board microphone and speaker (getting right speaker and amplifier is real pain).

Supported Programming environment

• Arduino
• MicroPython
• UIFlow
• .net nanoFramework
  

Setting up Arduino for M5Core2

First we need to install M5 Boards into our arduino IDE, checkout this nice write up. Add the following link in board manager (File->Preferences ->Additional Board Manager URLs). Then goto Board Manager (Tools -> Board -> Board Manager) and search for m5stack. Once installed M5Stack-Core2 will be available in the list of available boards. We can also install the Libraries for the board using library manager (Sketch -> Include Library -> Manage Libraries). Search for M5Core2 and install the libraries.

https://m5stack.oss-cn-shenzhen.aliyuncs.com/resource/arduino/package_m5stack_index.jon

Once installed, you can load any of the example sketches provided.