An Incredible Stretch for Maker Hardware
It's been an incredibly busy few weeks for single board computers and DIY electronics. New releases span a pocket Linux handheld with a built-in keyboard, budget RISC-V display boards with 5GHz Wi-Fi, and compact AI-focused SBCs aimed at cameras and vision work. Here's a brief of the most interesting devices that have been released or announced recently.
M5Stack Brings Linux to the Cardputer — via Kickstarter
M5Stack's original Cardputer earned a following by building an ESP32, keyboard, screen, and battery into a handheld shell. The new CardputerZero takes a different approach entirely, swapping the microcontroller for a much more powerful Raspberry Pi Compute Module 0 (CM0).
It's currently a Kickstarter campaign and hasn’t fully come to market, with early-bird pricing at $59 for the Lite version and $89 for the standard model (MSRP $99/$149).
The CardputerZero is sporting the CM0's quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 with 512MB of RAM, paired with a 1.9-inch display, HDMI output, and the signature 46-key keyboard. The full CardputerZero adds an 8-megapixel camera, a 6-axis IMU, and a bundled 32GB microSD card; the Lite model drops those to cut down on the already reasonable price.
Connectivity includes single-band 2.4GHz Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.2, and an ethernet port. It does pack three USB ports (two USB-C, one USB-A) that can switch between host and device modes, plus a Grove port and a 14-pin expansion header exposing SPI, I²C, and UART.
It has enough compute power to make it a genuine portable Linux terminal which makes a pretty unique handheld development system, network diagnostic tool, off-grid communicator (with optional LoRa/Meshtastic add-ons).
Waveshare Adds Screens to the ESP32-C5
Waveshare has released two development boards built around Espressif's ESP32-C5, which brings genuine dual-band Wi-Fi 6 (2.4GHz and 5GHz) to RISC-V-based display projects — most budget ESP32 boards are still stuck on 2.4GHz only.
ESP32-C5 Touch LCD 2.8: The larger board pairs a 2.8-inch, 240×320 IPS touchscreen with the ESP32-C5-WROOM-1 module (RISC-V, up to 240MHz), 8MB of PSRAM, and 32MB of flash. It also includes a 6-axis IMU, a temperature/humidity sensor, a microphone and speaker, an RTC, a microSD slot, and battery-charging support. Alongside dual-band Wi-Fi 6, it supports Bluetooth 5, Zigbee, and Thread. Waveshare prices it at roughly $26.
ESP32-C5 LCD 1.47: The smaller sibling uses a 1.47-inch, 172×320 display, 4MB of flash, a microSD slot, USB-C, and an RGB LED, while keeping the same dual-band Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth, Zigbee, and Thread support. It runs around $12–13 depending on retailer.
Luckfox Aura Targets Cameras and Local AI
The Luckfox Aura is a Raspberry Pi-sized Linux board built around Rockchip's RV1126B, with a quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 running up to 1.6GHz and a 3 TOPS NPU. It's available with 1-4GB’s of LPDDR4X memory and up to 64GB of eMMC storage.
Camera support is the headline feature: two 4-lane MIPI CSI interfaces, an ISP handling camera up to 12 megapixels with hardware HDR, denoising, and fisheye correction, plus a secondary AI-ISP for extra noise reduction. Video is handled by a 4K@30fps H.264/H.265 encode/decode engine.
Other specs include dual-band Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.4, Gigabit Ethernet with optional PoE, USB 3.0 Type-C, four USB 2.0 host ports, a 40-pin GPIO header compatible with some Raspberry Pi HATs, and support for Buildroot and Debian 13 operating systems.
Pricing starts around $49–52 for entry-level configurations (2GB RAM, no eMMC) and climbs well past $100 for higher-memory, higher-storage variants.
Luckfox Lume Combines Arm Linux With RISC-V
The Luckfox Lume is a new SBC built around the Allwinner T153, priced at $20.99 for the standard version and $25.99 for the PoE-capable variant.
The T153 combines a quad-core Arm Cortex-A7 cluster with a separate XuanTie E907 RISC-V core running at up to 600MHz. Linux runs on the Arm side while the RISC-V core can be dedicated to real-time or low-power tasks — an asymmetric multiprocessing setup rather than a full alternate Linux path.
The board is modest on memory by SBC standards — 128MB of DDR3 and 256MB of SPI NAND flash — reflecting its focus on embedded and industrial use rather than general computing. It has no dedicated GPU beyond basic 2D acceleration, and no VPU or NPU.
Connectivity includes two Gigabit Ethernet ports (one with optional PoE), a 2-lane MIPI CSI camera interface, a 4-lane MIPI DSI display interface (up to 1080p60), USB 2.0 Type-A and USB-C ports, a microSD slot, and a 40-pin GPIO header. Documentation currently runs through Buildroot.
Seeed Studio Expands the XIAO Family
Seeed Studio has introduced the XIAO nRF54LM20A and XIAO nRF54LM20A Sense, super compact wireless boards built on Nordic's nRF54LM20A SoC — a 128MHz Arm Cortex-M33 with 512KB of RAM, roughly 2MB of internal flash, and an 8MB external flash chip.
Both support Bluetooth LE 6.0 (including Channel Sounding), Matter, Thread, Zigbee, NFC, and proprietary 2.4GHz communication at up to 4Mbps. The Sense variant adds a 6-axis IMU and a digital microphone. While asleep the IMU is able to wake the board on motion.
An onboard nPM1300 power-management chip, USB-C, battery charging, an IPEX antenna connector, and 28 GPIO pins round out the hardware. In Seeed's own testing, the board hit a System OFF current of 4.93µA.
Early pricing is $8.90 for the standard model and $14.90 for the Sense version. Items are starting to get shipped out as of July 15th.
Radxa Shrinks the Allwinner A733
The Radxa Cubie A7S joins Radxa’s Cubie family, with other variants being the Cubie A5E, A7Z & A7A. Like the other Cubie models it is built around the Allwinner chips, with this one using the low powered Allwinner A733.
Its octa-core CPU pairs two Cortex-A76 performance cores (up to 2.0GHz) with six Cortex-A55 efficiency cores (up to 1.8GHz). An Imagination BXM-4-64 GPU handles graphics, and a 3 TOPS NPU handles on-device AI inference. Ram options vary from 4-8GBs.
Expansion includes Gigabit Ethernet, Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.x, two USB-C ports (one with DisplayPort Alt Mode for 4K video output), a USB Type-A port, a 4-lane MIPI CSI camera connector, GPIO headers, and a PCIe 3.0 x1 connection via a 16-pin FFC connector. Radxa supports Debian Linux and Android 13, with Armbian support in the works.
Pricing starts at roughly $45 for the 4GB version.
Final Thoughts
The common thread across these releases isn't just faster hardware, it's more complete, purpose-built platforms. M5Stack is turning the Cardputer into a genuine Linux handheld and I personally am greatly looking forward to its release. Waveshare is making dual-band RISC-V boards easier to use by building in displays and sensors. Luckfox is splitting its lineup between vision-focused AI boards and low-cost industrial networking gear, while Seeed continues pushing wireless boards toward smaller, lower-power deployments.
For developers and DIY builders, that generally means less time wiring together basic components and more time on your actual projects.
Which of these would you want to see tested first?