Waveshare $16 ESP32-C6 1.69″ LCD Dev Board Features Wi-Fi 6, BLE5, AI Voice, and IMU

Waveshare’s ESP32-C6 1.69-inch LCD Dev Board is a compact Wi-Fi 6/BLE 5-capable RISC-V board with a color LCD and various peripherals, designed for AIoT, wearable, and voice-interactive applications. It comes in both touch and non-touch variants and is priced reasonably for ESP32-C6-based projects.

Key features include a 160MHz 32-bit RISC-V processor, 1.69-inch 240×280 IPS display (ST7789V2), Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5, IEEE 802.15.4 (Zigbee 3.0, Thread), onboard 6-axis IMU (QMI8658), RTC (PCF85063), ES8311 audio codec with mic/speaker, battery charging via MX1.25 header, and flexible I/O expansion. A secondary 20MHz low-power RISC-V core is included for energy-efficient processing. It also supports AI speech and connects to platforms like DeepSeek or Doubao for online inference. SPI interface display minimizes GPIO usage, and a Type-C port handles flashing and logging.

ESP32-C6 1.69-inch LCD Dev Board Specifications

• Main SoC: Espressif Systems ESP32-P4
  • CPU
    • Dual-core 32-bit RISC-V HP (High-performance) CPU @ up to 400 MHz with AI instructions extension and single-precision FPU
    • Single-RISC-V LP (Low-power) MCU core @ up to 40 MHz with 8KB of zero-wait TCM RAM
  • Memory
    • 768 KB HP L2MEM (for dual-core CPU), 32 KB LP SRAM, 8 KB TCM (for LP MCU core)
    • 32MB PSRAM
  • Storage – 128 KB HP ROM, 16 KB LP ROM
  • GPU – 2D Pixel Processing Accelerator (PPA)
  • VPU – H.264 and JPEG codecs support
• Display:
  • 1.69-inch IPS LCD, 240×280, 262K colors
  • ST7789V2 driver, SPI interface
• Audio:
  • ES8311 codec, NS4150B amp, onboard mic and speaker
• Sensors:
  • QMI8658 6-axis IMU (accelerometer + gyroscope)
• Power:
  • ETA6098 Li-ion battery charging IC
  • MX1.25 battery and speaker headers
• I/O:
  • USB Type-C, BOOT/RST buttons, user button
  • Reserved pads for GPIO, I2C, UART, USB
• AI Support:
  • Online AI model integration (DeepSeek, Doubao)
• Misc:
  • Onboard antenna, PWR button with press detection logic
  • PCF85063 RTC
• Dimensions: 32 mm x 27mm

The ESP32-C6 development board can be programmed with the ESP-IDF SDK with Wi-Fi 6, BLE 5, and 802.15.4 stack integration. SPI LCD control is supported via ST7789 drivers, and peripheral integration (IMU, audio codec, RTC) is manageable using I2C/SPI libraries. Online AI inference can be implemented using ESP-BOX-style audio pipelines or third-party AI voice SDKs compatible with ESP32-C6. More information is available on the company’s Wiki page.

Previously, we have written about other display development boards, including the Lilygo T-Display K230 development board, the LILYGO T-Display S3 AMOLED Plus, the Sparkfun Pro Micro-RP2350, the RDK X3 Development Board, Lilygo’s T-TWR REV2.1, and much more. Feel free to check those out if you are interested in the topic.

The ESP32-C6 1.69-inch LCD board is priced at around $15.99 and can be directly purchased from the Waveshare store page.