Cardputer factory user demo

What you’re building

M5Stack’s Cardputer UserDemo is the manufacturer’s ESP-IDF reference firmware for evaluating the original M5Cardputer hardware. The repository includes hardware-abstraction code for the keyboard, display, speaker, microphone, microSD card, battery reading, infrared, Wi-Fi, ESP-NOW, BLE and USB keyboard behavior, plus launcher applications such as Wi-Fi scan, timer, text editor, recorder, keyboard, infrared, chat, and a PikaPython REPL. Building it for the Cardputer produces a menu-driven factory-style demonstration that is useful for checking peripherals and studying M5Stack’s reference implementation. The documented toolchain is ESP-IDF 4.4.6 and the build command is idf.py build. A major compatibility constraint is model-specific: Cardputer ADV users are told to use the separate CardputerADV branch, while the default branch targets the earlier Cardputer. The README documents compilation but not a complete flashing walkthrough, so ESP-IDF’s generated flash instructions must be followed.

Key steps

1. Confirm the device model; switch to the CardputerADV branch instead of main when using Cardputer ADV.
2. Install and activate ESP-IDF v4.4.6, the toolchain version named by the repository.
3. Clone M5Cardputer-UserDemo and enter the repository directory.
4. Run idf.py build and resolve the serial port using the ESP-IDF environment.
5. Use the flash command emitted by ESP-IDF for the connected Cardputer, reboot, and exercise the launcher apps to verify keyboard, display, audio, storage, wireless, and infrared functions.