ESP32-C6

Wi-Fi 6, and the only chip here that also speaks Zigbee, Thread and Matter.

Before you plan anything

No classic Bluetooth, no DAC, one main core.

The low-power core is real but is only reachable from ESP-IDF today. From Arduino you get the main core only.

Wi-Fi 6BLE 5No classic BT802.15.4USB serial/JTAGNo DACNo touch pinsNo PSRAMSingle coreNo MIPI display

RISC-V + LP core · 1 × 160 MHz

ESP32-C6 board photo

We stock

ESP32-C6 DevKitC-1

Buy this one if the project ends up inside a smart-home system. Matter support is the reason it exists.

See it in the shop →

The pins that matter

Not all forty-odd of them. The five rows that decide whether your wiring works.

Default I2CSDA 6 · SCL 7Core default for the DevKitC-1.

On-board LEDGPIO 8Addressable RGB on the DevKitC-1.

Strapping pinsGPIO 4, 5, 8, 9, 15GPIO 9 is BOOT. GPIO 15 selects the internal regulator mode.

Radio sharing2.4 GHz, one antennaWi-Fi, BLE and 802.15.4 take turns. Running Thread and Wi-Fi together costs throughput.

ADC pinsGPIO 0–6All on ADC1.

Pinout diagram — ESP32-C6 DevKitC-1

Board settings, all three toolchains

Get one of these wrong and nothing else on the site will work.

Arduino IDEC++Tools → BoardESP32C6 Dev Module

Needs Arduino core 3.0 or newer. Older cores do not know this chip at all.

MicroPythonPython + ThonnyfirmwareESP32_GENERIC_C6-20260201-v1.25.bin

1.25 is the first build with the Wi-Fi 6 flags exposed.

PlatformIObuild systemplatformio.iniboard = esp32-c6-devkitc-1

Pin the platform to a recent version; older ones predate the C6.

What catches people out on this chip

These are the support emails. They exist nowhere else on the site because they are true of nothing else.

Wi-Fi 6 only helps if your router is Wi-Fi 6

Against an older access point it falls back and behaves like every other ESP32. The battery gains come from target wake time, which needs both ends.

Matter is not a protocol you bolt on at the end

It decides your data model and your commissioning flow. Read the Matter page before you write the sensor code, not after.

Zigbee and Wi-Fi fight for the radio

One antenna, three protocols. Running a Thread border router and Wi-Fi at once works but is slower than either alone.

The low-power core needs ESP-IDF

If the reason you bought a C6 is the LP core, budget time for IDF. Arduino does not expose it yet.

News about this chip

2026-08-26Matter over Thread now works from Arduino, not just ESP-IDFThe C6 can be commissioned into Apple Home and Google Home without touching IDF.

2026-08-01MicroPython 1.25 firmware for all five chipsFresh .bin files, and the C6 build finally exposes the Wi-Fi 6 flags.

Guides for this chip

75 of 81 apply

Written once for the whole family. Opening one from here fixes the pins to this chip and the code to your language.

01 · Start hereWhat the ESP32 is 02 · Start hereChoosing your tools 03 · Setup and uploadingInstall the toolchain 04 · Setup and uploadingHello world over serial 05 · Setup and uploadingBlink an LED 06 · Setup and uploadingWhen uploads fail 07 · Setup and uploadingSerial ports and drivers 08 · Setup and uploadingPrinting, plotting and debugging 09 · The board itselfThe EN and BOOT buttons 10 · The board itselfThe pins you cannot use 11 · The board itselfWhat the chip says about itself 12 · Pins and signalsDigital I/O 13 · Pins and signalsPWM with LEDC 14 · Pins and signalsReading the ADC 15 · Pins and signalsuse insteadDAC output 16 · Pins and signalsuse insteadTouch pins 17 · Interrupts and timingInterrupts on a pin 18 · Interrupts and timingSharing data with an ISR 19 · Interrupts and timingHardware timers 20 · Interrupts and timingCounting pulses 21 · Interrupts and timingAddressable LEDs with RMT 22 · Wires on the boardDigital in and digital out 23 · Wires on the boardOne-wire sensor timing 24 · Wires on the board1-Wire and device chains 25 · Wires on the boardI2C, start to stop 26 · Wires on the boardI2C addresses and conflicts 27 · Wires on the boardI2C on a shared bus 28 · Wires on the boardSPI and chip select 29 · Wires on the boardUART, start to stop 30 · Wires on the boardIR remote codes 31 · BusesI2C 32 · BusesSPI 33 · BusesUART and baud rates 34 · BusesRS485 and Modbus 35 · StorageFilesystem on flash 36 · StorageUploading files to LittleFS 37 · StoragePreferences and NVS 38 · StoragemicroSD cards 39 · StoragePartition tables and flash size 40 · Joining a networkWi-Fi station mode 41 · Joining a networkAccess point mode 42 · Joining a networkBoth at once: AP and station 43 · Joining a networkSeveral networks, one board 44 · Joining a networkWi-Fi provisioning 45 · Joining a networkWi-Fi 6 features 46 · Living on a networkmDNS and NTP 47 · Living on a networkKeeping time with time.h 48 · Living on a networkHTTPS and certificates 49 · Living on a networkOTA updates 50 · Living on a networkEthernet instead of Wi-Fi 51 · Web serverHello world from the board 52 · Web serverA reading on the page 53 · Web serverSwitching a pin from the page 54 · Web serverAsync web server 55 · Messages on the networkHTTP from a board 56 · Messages on the networkMQTT and a broker 57 · Messages on the networkWebSocket dashboards 58 · Messages on the networkNames and time 59 · Messages on the networkFirmware in two slots 60 · BluetoothBLE server and client 61 · BluetoothA value a phone can read 62 · BluetoothA value a phone can write 63 · Bluetoothuse insteadClassic Bluetooth serial 64 · Other radiosESP-NOW 65 · Other radiosESP-WIFI-MESH 66 · Other radiosZigbee, Thread and Matter 67 · Other radiosLoRa for long range 68 · Sleep and wake-upDeep sleep and wake sources 69 · Sleep and wake-upHibernation, the floor below sleep 70 · Sleep and wake-upWaking on a timer 71 · Sleep and wake-upWaking on a pin or a touch 72 · Sleep and wake-upWhat survives deep sleep 73 · Sleep and wake-upThe ULP low-power core 74 · PowerPower and the 3V3 rail 75 · PowerBattery and power budget 76 · PowerMeasuring current draw 77 · Systemuse insteadDual core tasks 78 · SystemCrash dumps and the watchdog 79 · SystemI2S audio 80 · Systemuse insteadCamera capture 81 · Systemuse insteadMIPI displays

Modules that work with the ESP32-C6

All modules work. This is the chip the Matter and Zigbee lessons are written against, and the only one where those pages are not greyed out.

Browse the module index →