LILYGO T7-C5

Overview

The LILYGO T7-C5 is a compact and affordable development board built around the ESP32-C5-MINI-1, Espressif's first dual-band (2.4 GHz + 5 GHz) WiFi 6 (802.11ax) chip with RISC-V architecture. At just $7.94, it provides an extremely cost-effective entry point for exploring WiFi 6 and 802.15.4 (Zigbee/Thread) development.

In addition to dual-band WiFi 6, the ESP32-C5 integrates BLE 5 and 802.15.4 support for Zigbee and Thread mesh networking protocols — making it highly versatile for Matter, smart home, and industrial IoT applications. Two Qwiic 4-pin connectors allow for easy, solder-free attachment of I2C sensors and peripherals from the SparkFun and Adafruit Qwiic/STEMMA QT ecosystems.

The board includes dedicated BOOT and Reset buttons for easy development workflow and supports Arduino IDE and VS Code for programming. With 4MB of onboard Flash and the efficiency of the RISC-V core, the T7-C5 is well-suited for compact, low-power connected applications.

Firmware Compatibility

• Arduino — Use the ESP32 Arduino core (v3.x+) which includes ESP32-C5 support.
• ESP-IDF — Full Espressif SDK support including 802.15.4 for Zigbee and Thread.
• Zigbee — Native Zigbee stack via ESP-Zigbee SDK.
• Thread / OpenThread — Support via ESP-IDF OpenThread component.
• Matter — Supported via Espressif's esp-matter SDK running over Thread or WiFi.

Flashing Guide

1. Install ESP-IDF v5.3+ or Arduino ESP32 core v3.1.0+ for ESP32-C5 support.
2. Connect the T7-C5 via USB-C.
3. In Arduino IDE, select ESP32C5 Dev Module as the board.
4. For ESP-IDF: idf.py set-target esp32c5.
5. Hold the BOOT button while pressing Reset to enter download mode if automatic entry fails.
6. Flash your sketch or ESP-IDF project and monitor via Serial at 115200 baud.