An ESP32 dev board is a small programmable computer with wireless built in, which you program from a PC over USB to read sensors and switch things. The ESP32-H2 SuperMini is a low-power board for Thread, Zigbee and Matter smart-home devices, on a 23 x 18mm board with USB-C. It has no WiFi. It pairs an 802.15.4 radio with Bluetooth 5.3 LE, so it joins a smart-home mesh as a battery-friendly end device and reaches your network through a border router or hub.
Use it for Matter-over-Thread or Zigbee sensors, switches and plugs, Home Assistant and ESPHome nodes, or Bluetooth LE beacons. It needs a Thread border router or Zigbee coordinator to talk to, and if you want one board to be that router, the ESP32-C6 SuperMini has WiFi as well. A single lithium cell solders to the B+ and B- pads underneath and charges from USB-C, so a battery sensor needs no separate charger board. The pins work at 3.3V, so a 5V sensor output needs a level shifter or a voltage divider before it reaches a GPIO. Choose Unsoldered to fit the supplied header strips yourself or wire straight to the edge pads, or choose Pre-soldered to have the headers fitted for you.
Specifications
Datasheets
What's in the box
Comes with the headers loose or fitted, depending on the option you choose.
Unsoldered: supplied loose, ten pins each against nine pads per side, so snap one pin off or let it hang over. Solder them straight, right-angle or low-profile to suit your build, or leave them off and reflow the board by its castellated edges. Pre-soldered: fitted along both long edges.
Wiring & getting started
- Find the pins
The board has 18 edge pads. On the top face, the 15 and BAT marks label the LEDs beside them, not pads, and the inner hole marked 28 is GPIO26. The datasheet has the full pin map. Leave the inner holes for GPIO26 and 27 free, because using them as ordinary pins costs you the USB connection.
- Add a battery (optional)
Solder one protected LiPo cell to the round pads underneath, positive to B+ and negative to B-. It charges whenever USB-C is plugged in and the charge LED shows it charging. Don't leave it charging unattended.
- Plug in with a USB-C data cable
A charge-only cable lights the board but no port ever appears, so swap the cable before anything else.
- Install the board package
In the free Arduino IDE, open Tools > Board > Boards Manager, search esp32 and install the esp32 board package by Espressif, version 3.0 or later. Earlier versions have no H2 support, so the board is missing from the list.
- Select the board
Choose Tools > Board > ESP32H2 Dev Module, set USB CDC On Boot to Enabled so the Serial Monitor shows output, then pick the port under Tools > Port. PlatformIO, ESP-IDF and ESPHome work too.
- Upload a test and check it works
Open File > Examples > ESP32 > ChipID > GetChipID and upload it. Open the Serial Monitor at 115200 baud and a line naming the ESP32-H2 and its chip ID appears every few seconds. If the Serial Monitor stays blank, check USB CDC On Boot is Enabled and upload again. If no port appears, hold BOOT, tap RESET, release BOOT, then upload again.
Note: Power the board from one source at a time: never feed the 5V pad while USB-C is plugged in. Check the cell's polarity before you solder it, because a cell connected backwards to B+ and B- can damage the charger.
