Skip to content

Flashing from a computer

Jump to bottom
psonnera edited this page Jul 19, 2026 · 4 revisions

Flashing from a computer

If you would rather not use the Android app, you can flash the pre-built firmware from a computer. On Windows the release ships with the M5Burner app embedded, so there is nothing else to install but the USB driver. macOS is the most involved option and is linked at the bottom.

This project ships a single build for the 16 MB M5Stack cores — Basic 16 MB / v2.7, Fire, and Core2. One binary covers all three.

Windows

1. Install the USB driver

The M5Stack uses a CP210x (Silicon Labs) USB-to-UART bridge.

  • Windows 10/11: install the driver linked from the M5Stack docs.
  • Older Windows: get the CP210x VCP driver from Silicon Labs, extract the zip, run the installer and finish the wizard.

If an older SiLabs driver is already installed you may need to remove it before Windows shows the M5Stack serial port.

2. Download the release

Download the latest zip from the Releases page. It already contains the M5Burner app and the xDripMon firmware — no separate download needed. Extract it to C:\ or another location whose path has no spaces.

3. Flash with M5Burner

  1. Plug the M5Stack in and confirm it appears in Device Manager under Ports (COM & LPT) — note its COM number.
  2. Run the M5Burner executable from the extracted folder. Allow it through Windows Defender / SmartScreen if prompted.
  3. Select the correct COM port and set the baudrate to 921600.
  4. Choose the M5Stack_xDripMon firmware (the 16 MB build for Basic 2.7 / Fire / Core2).
  5. Click Erase (skip if nothing happens), then click Burn.
  6. When it finishes, the device reboots into xDripMon.

Continue with Device setup.

macOS

macOS has no bundled burner — it uses Homebrew + esptool from the command line, which is the most involved route. The steps are identical to the original project's guide; follow it and simply substitute this project's binaries from the release zip (the ESP32_16MB folder):

➡ M5_NightscoutMon — macOS flashing guide

In short: install the CP210x driver, brew install esptool, then write_flash the bootloader, partitions and .ino binaries from the ESP32_16MB folder at offsets 0x1000, 0x8000 and 0x10000.

Build from source

To compile it yourself instead, use the Arduino IDE or arduino-cli with:

  • board package M5Stack 2.1.1 (targets M5Core / M5Fire / M5Core2)
  • libraries M5Unified (with M5GFX) and NimBLE-Arduino 2.x

M5Stack xDripMon

Install

Use

Develop

Based on M5_NightscoutMon by Martin Lukasek.

Clone this wiki locally