Waveshare ESP32 S3 Mini
Small ESP32-S3 board from Waveshare with USB and BLE - ideal for embedded projects and compact device prototyping.
Waveshare ESP32 S3 Mini Pinout
23 pins · 2.54 mm pitch
| Pin | GPIO | Labels | Status | Capabilities | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | A0T1PWM | safe | adc · touch | |
| 2 | 2 | A1T2PWM | safe | adc · touch | |
| 3 | 3 | A2T3PWM | strapping | adc · touch | |
| 4 | 4 | A3T4PWM | safe | adc · touch | |
| 5 | 5 | A4T5PWM | safe | adc · touch | |
| 6 | 6 | A5T6PWM | safe | adc · touch | |
| 7 | 7 | A6T7PWM | safe | adc · touch | |
| 8 | 8 | SDAA7T8PWM | safe | adc · touch · i2c | |
| 9 | 9 | SCLA8T9PWM | strapping | adc · touch · i2c | |
| 10 | 10 | SSA9T10PWM | strapping | adc · touch · spi | |
| 11 | 11 | MOSIA10T11PWM | strapping | adc · touch · spi | |
| 12 | 12 | SCKA11T12PWM | strapping | adc · touch · spi | |
| 13 | 13 | MISOA12T13PWM | strapping | adc · touch · spi | |
| 14 | 14 | A13T14PWM | strapping | adc · touch | |
| 15 | 15 | A14PWM | safe | adc | |
| 16 | 16 | A15PWM | safe | adc | |
| 17 | 17 | A16PWM | safe | adc | |
| 18 | 18 | A17PWM | safe | adc | |
| 19 | 19 | A18PWM | uart | adc | |
| 20 | 20 | A19PWM | uart | adc | |
| 21 | 43 | TXPWM | uart | uart | |
| 22 | 44 | RXPWM | uart | uart | |
| 23 | 48 | LED_BUILTIN | strapping | - |
Start with these
11 pins with no boot or system involvementFreely assignable - no strapping, flash, USB or JTAG duties. Ideal first picks for buttons, sensors and LEDs.
Fine - with a little care
10 pins · 5 things to knowA2GPIO3 Bootstrapping pin (controls JTAG signal source) Strapping
Sampled at reset to select JTAG interface (USB Serial/JTAG controller vs. external pins). Improper use can disable external JTAG or alter debug interface.
SCLGPIO9SSGPIO10MOSIGPIO11SCKGPIO12MISOGPIO13A13GPIO14 General-purpose SPI2 (FSPI) IO MUX pins Other
IO MUX pin of the general-purpose SPI2 (FSPI) bus, not of the in-package flash - that sits on GPIO26-32. The datasheet lists it as a priority-2 pin ("can be freely used without restrictions"), so it is only taken if your board wires flash, an SD card or a display to FSPI.
- SCLGeneral-purpose SPI2 (FSPI) IO MUX pin - hold/data line (FSPIHD)
- SSGeneral-purpose SPI2 (FSPI) IO MUX pin - chip select (FSPICS0)
- MOSIGeneral-purpose SPI2 (FSPI) IO MUX pin - data in (FSPID)
- SCKGeneral-purpose SPI2 (FSPI) IO MUX pin - clock (FSPICLK)
- MISOGeneral-purpose SPI2 (FSPI) IO MUX pin - data out (FSPIQ)
- A13General-purpose SPI2 (FSPI) IO MUX pin - write-protect/data line (FSPIWP)
TXGPIO43 UART0 transmit pin (U0TXD), default serial console TX UART
Used for bootloader output and UART console logs. If repurposed, you will lose the default serial output (and programming via UART0).
RXGPIO44 UART0 receive pin (U0RXD), default serial console RX UART
Used for bootloader input (download mode via serial). If repurposed, you cannot use the default UART0 download mode for programming the chip.
LED_BUILTINGPIO48 Octal SPI differential clock negative leg (SPICLK_N_DIFF), used only by the 1.8 V octal flash/PSRAM variants Other
Only the 1.8 V octal parts (ESP32-S3R8V, ESP32-S3R16V) run the differential memory clock here, and on those the pin works at 1.8 V instead of 3.3 V. On the common 3.3 V modules it is a normal GPIO - several devkits drive their RGB LED from GPIO48.
Only if you know the tricks
2 pins · 1 thing to knowA18GPIO19A19GPIO20 USB OTG differential data pair (D- and D+) USB
By default connected to the on-chip USB Serial/JTAG controller. Using it as general GPIO without reconfiguring IO MUX will interfere with USB functionality.
- A18USB OTG negative differential data line (USB_D-)
- A19USB OTG positive differential data line (USB_D+)
The Waveshare ESP32 S3 Mini pinout brings out 23 GPIO pins at a 2.54 mm pitch - every one of them usable in your project.
For peripherals, I²C is mapped to SDA on GPIO8 and SCL on GPIO9; the SPI bus (MOSI, MISO, SCK, SS) is broken out in full; TX/RX on GPIO43 and GPIO44 cover serial logging and flashing.
On the analog side there are 20 ADC-capable pins for sensors and battery monitoring and 14 capacitive-touch inputs.
If you want zero surprises, A0, A1, A3, A4 and 7 more are free of any such role - the safest first picks. 10 of the exposed pins carry boot-time or system duties on the ESP32-S3 (A2, SCL, SS and 7 more).
Getting started
flash your first firmware in ~2 minutesBoard: ESP32S3 Dev Module USB CDC On Boot: Enabled Flash Size: 4MB (32Mb) Flash Mode: DIO PSRAM: QSPI PSRAM Partition Scheme: Default 4MB with spiffs (1.2MB APP/1.5MB SPIFFS) Upload Speed: 921600
// toggle GPIO1 - wire an LED and resistor to it
void setup() {
pinMode(1, OUTPUT);
}
void loop() {
digitalWrite(1, HIGH); delay(500);
digitalWrite(1, LOW); delay(500);
}[env:waveshare-esp32s3]
platform = espressif32
board = esp32-s3-devkitc-1
framework = arduino
monitor_speed = 115200
upload_speed = 921600
board_build.arduino.memory_type = qio_qspi
build_flags = -DBOARD_HAS_PSRAMesp32-s3-devkitc-1 - or type it after board =.esp32:
board: esp32-s3-devkitc-1
variant: esp32s3
framework:
type: esp-idf
psram:
mode: quad
speed: 80MHz
# blink - GPIO1
output:
- platform: gpio
pin: 1
id: led_out
light:
- platform: binary
name: "LED"
output: led_outesp32-s3-devkitc-1 (same ids as PlatformIO).esptool.py --chip esp32s3 --port /dev/ttyACM0 \
--baud 921600 write_flash 0x0 firmware.bin--port = your /dev/tty* (macOS/Linux) or COMx (Windows).Specifications
ESP32-S3 · 51 × 25.4 mm · vs other ESP32 chips →Dimensions
About this board
At its core is the ESP32-S3 - a dual-core Xtensa with vector extensions suited to AI workloads.
Expect to pay about $6.99 - less than the ~$29 most ESP32-S3 boards go for.
Onboard you'll find 2MB (QSPI) PSRAM, an addressable RGB LED and Reset/Boot buttons.
It flashes over native USB - no serial-converter driver needed, which isn't a given among ESP32-S3 boards.
Where to buy
prices are typical street pricesResources
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