LILYGO has two new compact boards targeting wireless IoT builders, and the more intriguing of the pair is the T-Echo Card, a credit-card-sized device that crams LoRa, GNSS, Bluetooth 5, NFC, a 9-axis IMU, a speaker, a microphone, and a solar panel into an IP66-rated waterproof enclosure. Built on the Nordic nRF52840 with an SX1262 LoRa transceiver covering the 400-520 MHz and 830-945 MHz ranges, the T-Echo Card is a natural fit for Meshtastic mesh networking, the same open-source firmware that made LILYGO's earlier T-Echo devices popular for off-grid communication. The board measures 90 x 60 x 9.5 mm (3.5 x 2.4 x 0.4 inches), includes an L76K GNSS module supporting GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou, and QZSS, and drives a tiny 1.1 cm (0.42-inch) OLED display. A magnetic USB connector and 0.25W solar panel handle charging, so remote deployments can run without regular intervention.

The nRF52840's UF2 bootloader means firmware updates on Linux require no special kernel drivers. The board mounts as a USB mass-storage volume in bootloader mode, so updating Meshtastic or installing custom firmware is a matter of copying a .uf2 file onto the mounted drive. LILYGO's T-Echo-Card repository ships example projects for both Arduino IDE (via the Adafruit nRF52 board package) and PlatformIO. NFC is the exception. It is only accessible through Nordic's proprietary SDK, as the nRF52 Arduino platform does not expose those APIs.

The second board, the T-Display C5, is one of the first dev boards to ship with Espressif's ESP32-C5, a RISC-V SoC that brings dual-band 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz Wi-Fi 6 to the microcontroller world alongside Bluetooth LE 5. The timing matters: ESP-IDF v6.0, released in March 2026, finally promoted the ESP32-C5 from preview to stable support, meaning Arduino IDE and ESP-IDF projects can now target it with production-grade tooling. The board pairs 16 MB of flash and 8 MB of PSRAM with a 4.8 cm (1.9-inch) ST7789 IPS color LCD at 170 x 320 resolution, an AXP2602 battery management unit, and a ULP LP RISC-V core for deep-sleep sensor polling. It measures just 62 x 26 x 10 mm (2.4 x 1.0 x 0.4 inches) and includes USB-C, a Qwiic connector, and an external antenna port.

Both boards are supported through LILYGO's GitHub repositories and wiki documentation. The T-Display C5 is listed at $12 (€11), though the product page currently shows it as sold out. The T-Echo Card is available at $60 (€55) with selectable frequency options and an optional magnetic USB cable.