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  • I don't think I've posted the schematic up yet actually - but it's pretty basic. Just the MCP1703T the Pico had, capacitors, and a fuse between USB 5v and the 5v pin. No separate 'battery' circuit.

    If you were hacking something up you could remove the fuse and then solder to the board to get USB 5v, but it's not great.

    I'm still not 100% sure on ESP32 . It seems it's still missing USB, so for any boards you really need a USB-serial chip, which is extra space + cost. Also, EspressIF did a great job on the WiFi, but folks like ST have had a massive head start with on-chip peripherals.

    What I'd really like to see is a USB charger + power supply board that forwarded the USB data lines from input to output. That way you could just put it in-line and still have a data connection. I'm yet to see one though... @DrAzzy? :)

    I keep meaning to at least add a solder jumper for the VBat pin, but I never get around to it. I'm not entirely sure what you have planned, but because Espruino goes into relatively low power sleep modes, generally you wouldn't ever power it off - you'd just have it go to sleep and then use a button press to wake it back up.

    In terms of wireless charging on the Puck, I just don't see it as an issue. The battery should last about a year, but equivalent CR2032 rechargeable batteries are about 1/4 the capacity. IMO it's easier/cheaper to change a $0.2 battery once a year than to buy a £50 inductive charger and then recharge the devices 4 times a year.

    Even so, I designed the board such that you could put a rechargeable battery in with a few tweaks (cut a solder jumper and add a diode to drop voltage) if you needed, so you could hack in inductive charging if you cared.

    I don't really see the need for an ESP32 Pico shim? After all, the ESP8266 works well enough for Wifi, and the ESP32's claim is that you wouldn't nee another uC. There is an ESP12 adaptor shim available, you'd just need an adaptor kit (which I'm out of stock of) or to send the design off yourself: http://www.espruino.com/Shims

    All the designs are available for download, so if you wanted you could re-arrange things to put the ESP12 underneath and make it more Espruino WiFi-ish.

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