Waveshare ESP32-C5 Pico: Dual-Band Wi-Fi 6 RISC-V Board in Pico Form Factor From $8.99

The short version

Waveshare has released the ESP32-C5 Pico, a development board that puts Espressif's ESP32-C5 wireless SoC onto the Raspberry Pi Pico mechanical and pinout footprint. Four variants are offered, and Waveshare's own store lists them between $8.99 and $9.99 before shipping and tax.

The reason this board is worth a look is not the form factor — it is the radio. The ESP32-C5 is one of the few RISC-V wireless MCUs shipping dual-band 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) alongside Bluetooth 5.0 LE and an IEEE 802.15.4 radio for Zigbee 3.0, Thread 1.3 and Matter. A single Pico-sized board that can act as a cross-protocol IoT gateway is genuinely useful for smart-home and industrial bridging work.

What is on the module

The board carries an ESP32-C5-MINI-1 (PCB antenna) or ESP32-C5-MINI-1U (IPEX connector, antenna included in the kit). Inside sits the ESP32-C5HF4:

• CPU: single-core 32-bit RISC-V, up to 240 MHz
• Low-power core: a second RISC-V core for power-sensitive operation — CNX Software lists this at 48 MHz; Waveshare's own documentation mentions only the 240 MHz main processor
• Memory: 384 KB on-chip SRAM, 320 KB ROM
• Storage: 4 MB SPI flash
• Wi-Fi: dual-band 2.4/5 GHz 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6), backward compatible with 802.11b/g/n; station, SoftAP, SoftAP+station and promiscuous modes
• Bluetooth: 5.0 LE with Mesh support, up to 2 Mbps
• 802.15.4: Zigbee 3.0, Thread 1.3, Matter, up to 250 kbps

Board-level I/O and power

Mechanically you get the familiar 2 × 20-pin Pico-compatible headers. Waveshare specifies up to 26 GPIO, of which six are routed through a TCA9554PWR I²C GPIO expander — worth knowing, because expander pins cannot do interrupt-driven or high-speed work the way native GPIO can. Also exposed: 20 PWM channels, I²C, SPI, UART, SDIO, JTAG and four ADC inputs, plus VBUS, VSYS, VBAT, 3.3 V and GND rails.

Power is the pleasant surprise. A USB Type-C port handles power, charging and programming, and there is a two-pin GH1.25 connector for a 3.7 V Li-Ion cell with on-board charge management. An MP1605GTF-Z synchronous buck accepts 2.3–5.5 V input and an ETA6098 switching charger handles the cell. Status LEDs cover power, charging and reverse-polarity warning, plus an RGB LED. Boot and Reset buttons are present.

Dimensions differ by antenna option: 56.85 × 21 mm for the PCB-antenna variant and 51 × 21 mm for the external-antenna variant.

Four variants, three price points

Waveshare SKUs are 35342, 35341, 35532 and 35533 respectively. Listed prices at time of writing: $8.99–$9.99 from Waveshare's own store, $10.43–$11.33 on AliExpress, $15.99–$17.99 on Amazon — all excluding shipping and tax, which vary by country.

Toolchain and examples

Both ESP-IDF and the Arduino IDE are supported, and Waveshare notes the ecosystem also works with PlatformIO and ESPHome. Code samples live on GitHub (Waveshare has moved off tarball distribution) and cover board information, the built-in RGB LED, the I/O expander, dual-band Wi-Fi, UART, an SPI CAN transceiver based on the MCP2515, and a small 1.83-inch touchscreen LCD. An LVGL-based Arduino sample is also published, which is a reasonable starting point if you are building a HMI on the 4 MB flash part.

What is not in the published material

Be aware of the gaps before you commit a design:

• No current-consumption figures published for active Wi-Fi, BLE or deep sleep.
• No measured Wi-Fi throughput or range figures.
• No regulatory certification status (FCC/CE/TELEC) stated for the module or the board.
• No stated minimum ESP-IDF version for ESP32-C5 support.
• The 48 MHz low-power core figure appears only in CNX Software's coverage, not in Waveshare's documentation.

None of these are unusual for a board at this price, but if you are moving from evaluation to product, you will need Espressif's own datasheet and the module certification pack.

Who should buy one

If you have been building Zigbee/Thread-to-Wi-Fi bridges with a host MCU plus two radios, this consolidates the job onto one RISC-V part at under ten dollars. The 5 GHz capability also matters in congested 2.4 GHz deployments. The trade-off is a single 240 MHz core: this is a connectivity part, not a compute part.

Sources

• CNX Software, "ESP32-C5 Pico board follows Raspberry Pi Pico form factor," 2026-09-09: https://www.cnx-software.com/2026/09/09/esp32-c5-pico-board-follows-raspberry-pi-pico-form-factor-ships-with-on-board-or-external-antenna/
• Waveshare official documentation, ESP32-C5-Pico: https://docs.waveshare.com/ESP32-C5-Pico
• Open Source For You, "ESP32-C5 Pico Brings Wi-Fi 6 to Pico Form Factor," September 2026: https://www.opensourceforu.com/2026/09/esp32-c5-pico-brings-wi-fi-6-to-pico-form-factor
• daily.dev aggregated listing with pricing detail: https://daily.dev/posts/esp32-c5-pico-board-follows-raspberry-pi-pico-form-factor-ships-with-on-board-or-external-antenna-ozcp6aity

Verification notes

• Every numeric specification above is taken from CNX Software's spec block or Waveshare's official documentation page, both retrieved 2026-09-11.
• The 48 MHz low-power core figure is attributed to CNX Software only; Waveshare's page does not state it. Presented as source-attributed rather than fact.
• The "up to 250 K" 802.15.4 data rate appears in CNX Software as "250 K" and in daily.dev as "250 Kbps"; written as 250 kbps with both sources agreeing.
• Pricing is a snapshot from 2026-09-09 and excludes shipping and tax — stated in the body.
• No performance, power or certification claim is asserted beyond what the cited sources state. Items absent from the sources are listed explicitly as "not published" rather than estimated.
• Site note: a separate Espressif board (ESP32-P4X-EYE) was covered on 2026-09-09. This draft covers a different silicon family (ESP32-C5, connectivity-oriented) and does not overlap.