The Sparkle Motion Stick is part of Adafruit's series of "Sparkle Motion" boards, which are their attempt to make the best small WLED-friendly smart LED driving board in the whole world.
Adafruit's resident mermaid, firepixie makes a lot of projects with WLED, and she loves it! So, how to make something powerful enough to drive advanced LED projects that need a compact design?
This version includes both the Sparkle Motion Stick and the enclosure, which is great if you want to protect your USB dongle from everyday usage, but note that it is not waterproof or weatherproof. There are three pieces: two snap over the PCB to capture it in place, and one can be used as a USB A port cap. There's also a button lever - by default in WLED pin 0 is an on/off mode switcher, but you can program it to do other stuff.
The USB Stick version of the Sparkle Motion is a simpler version of the full-featured Sparkle Motion. It even fits into a low cost off-the-shelf case for protection.
- Power via USB Type A for up to 5V 2A input - you can use off-the-shelf USB battery packs for portable operation.
- 2 Amp resetting fuse to protect from over-current drive
- ESP32 mini module with built-in antenna port - the classic ESP32 has the best WLED support, even if we'd prefer the 'S2 or 'S3. Comes with 4 MB of flash, dual-core 240MHz Tensilica, WiFi, Bluetooth® LE, and Bluetooth® Classic support.
- USB-serial converter with auto-reset
- Two output signals plus 5V power and ground - both signal outputs are level shifted to 5V.
- Built-in I2S microphone for audio-reactive projects
- Built-in Infrared receiver on GPIO 10 for easy remote control integration
- User button on GPIO 0 which you can press even when its in the snap-on case
- Red built-in LED on pin 4
- Small built-in NeoPixel on pin 18
- Screw terminal blocks for no-solder connectivity
Compared to the larger Sparkle Motion board, this only supports 5V and doesn't have a reset button, there are fewer outputs, and no breakout pads of I2C/GPIO connections for external accessories.
Compared to the Sparkle Motion Mini, this has a USB A port so it's 2A max power. It does have IR and built-in terminal blocks but does not have GPIO breakout pads.
While we recommend it for use with WLED, it will also work just fine as a compact ESP32 board for use with Arduino, ESP-IDF, MicroPython, CircuitPython, or any other ESP32-supported codebase.
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