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Comment by stavros | Hacker News Reader

This is looking pretty great, I've really wanted a MCU with Zigbee on it, for the various little battery-operated devices I've wanted to make. However, with Espressif's lineup, I've really lost track of what does what, lately.

Does anyone know of a good comparison resource?

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The flashy PDF is here https://products.espressif.com/static/Espressif%20SoC%20Prod... a one-pager comparing all models.

According to that pdf the ESP32-C5 does have Zigbee.

Are we sure this is correct? The table shows ESP32-C5 supports CANFD but I cant find any info on CAN-FD peripheral, drivers, etc.

https://products.espressif.com/#/product-comparison

This is a little bit more interactive and detail-oriented. I think they also have flashy onesheet PDFs that are more marketing oriented.

The ESP32-C6 has a Zigbee radio. I have 6 myself -- they're great.

Does the Zigbee work well/as expected? Does it have lower power draw when doing Zigbee vs. wifi?

I'd like to know that too, have been considering doing some zigbee tinkering, and battery powered would be a requirement. I've read in some other comment that nRF would be much better in that regard. Need to do some googling for numbers...

I bought a few of those, but at $8 they're a bit pricier than the $3 Espressif spoiled me with.

supermini boards with esp32c6 on it can be had for approximately 4 euro each.

Do you have any links? I couldn't find any.

Digikey has the modules for under 4 EUR in unit quantities, but they aren't the friendliest to integrate, since they only have pads on the bottom. I also found some boards with the bare chip for just over 4 EUR there, you can also find similar ones on AliExpress.

Nice, thanks! I didn't find them a few days ago when I looked, and I spend $40 for 5, when I could have gotten 10. Thanks again.

All MCUs with 802.15.4 radios (STM32WB, nRF5x, ESP32, Ambiq, etc.) can transmit and receive Zigbee frames. The real issue with Zigbee is full software support.

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