The main controller device is called the “Core”. These “Core” products play a pivotal role in our product category. Most of them can be modular and stackable with other modules via connectors called M-Bus such as LiPo battery module, GPS receiver module, and LoRa / NB-IoT / LTE-4G wireless communication module, etc. We have several kinds of Cores, the following figures show the main difference with them.
ESP32 IoT Core Series
The products of the series are perfect for people who want to make advanced ESP32 projects with a display, user interface, speaker, and a couple of buttons. It’s super easy to snap in other M5 blocks to add sensors, interfaces, or cameras, no soldering required.
M5Stick Series
The products of the M5Stick series are smaller than ESP32 IoT Core Series. Especially, M5StickC is suitable for wearables.
There are a bunch of libraries, examples, and other cool stuff all open source for prototyping of your ideas. So, if you’re interested in developing your own wearable gadget, which works according to your requirements, all you need is an M5StickC. Yes, none other, but M5StickC. And it is also a kind of cost-effective kit. Maybe, you can’t even imagine that it was called an IoT platform on your wrist.
M5stickV is the visual sensor module based on Kendryte K210, which can perform high-speed convolution neural network calculation under ultra-low power consumption. Use scenarios such as target detection and image classification tasks based on convolutional neural network, face detection and face recognition, multi-class object detection, and recognition.
Obviously, M5StickT has gotten a lot of attention in 2020 due to the product’s potential role in detecting people who may be infected with COVID-19. It is an Infrared Thermal Imaging Camera. It adopts the advanced FLIR Lepton 3.0 long-wave infrared (LWIR) camera core with an effective resolution of 160 * 120 for a clear and stable image. Its main control chip is ESP32 which provides a different IoT power and performance.
M5Stack ATOM Series
M5Stack ATOM series are the latest items. M5Stack ATOM Matrix, ATOM Lite, and M5Stack ATOM ECHO are the core category from the M5Stack ATOM series. A great many peripherals have been released so far such as ATOMIC Proto Kit, ATOM Tail485, ATOM TailBat, ATOM HUB Proto Kit, ATOM 2D/1D Barcode Scanner Kit, ATOM GPS Kit (M8030-KT) and ATOM TF-Card Kit.
ATOMIC Proto Kit is a versatile DIY kit for users to unleash a new wave of creative ideas and opportunities. It is ideal for you to design your own projects!
ATOM Tail485 is an RS485 converter designed for M5Stack ATOM, which is used for converting RS485 signals to TTL.
ATOM TailBat is an accessory external battery designed for M5Stack ATOM. It can directly supply power to the M5Stack ATOM. ( 190mah battery )
ATOM HUB Proto is a DIY proto board module designed for use with the ATOM series. You can build circuits or create prototypes and end-use devices for various scenarios.
ATOM 2D/1D Barcode Scanner Kit is an ESP32 M5Stack Atom compatible module with wireless connectivity for reading Barcode/QR-codes. Compatible with Arduino, it easily captures all common barcodes (2D/1D) on labels!
M5Stack ATOMIC GPS is a GPS+Glonass positioning module based on ATOMIC. The navigation chip is M8030-KT, together with a flash and a button cell can save your history configuration.
M5Stack ATOMIC TF-CARD is an ATOM-based TF (MicroSD) card module. It can support up to 16GB TF card.
ATOM (refers to ATOM Matrix and ATOM Lite) will be equipped with various peripherals!
Conclusion
M5stack was rapidly growing in the first half of 2020, successfully defying market volatility by the global outbreak of the virus. Certainly, the most critical for reasons why M5Stack increasingly focused on user’s experience and M5Stack products are widely preferred in most of the engineers. There has been an increasing demand for no breadboard and wires, no prototyping board, no solder required. Modular and Stackable dev kits may become a classic hobby that can be enjoyed by both young and old.