Well, honestly, [Michael Mayer’s] STM8 Arduino (called Sduino) isn’t actually much to do with the Arduino, except in spirit. The STM8 is an 8-bit processor. It is dirt cheap and has some special motor control features that are handy. There’s a significant library available for it. However, it can be a pain to use the library and set up the build.

Just like how the Arduino IDE provides libraries and a build system for gcc, Sduino provides similar libraries and a build system for the sdcc compiler that can target the STM8. However, if you are expecting the Arduino’s GUI or a complete knock off of the Arduino library, you won’t get that.

That being said, you do get a lot of compatible libraries. The command line Makefile is simple to set up and use. Why not use a “normal” Arduino? The STM8 is not only inexpensive, but you can make use of the specialized hardware for things like quadrature decoding. In addition, the low power modes are super low.

Don’t let the Makefile put you off. The standard Blink sketch looks identical to an Arduino version. Here’s the required Makefile:

BOARD_TAG = stm8sblue
include ../../sduino/sduino.mk

That’s it. Not too hard.

There’s support for a simple breakout board that is inexpensive, as well as the ESP-14 pictured at the top of this article which has an ESP8266 and an STM8 controller onboard. For about $3 you get an STM8003 CPU and the WiFi capability. Hard to beat that. [Elliot Williams] just gave that board a try and found the ESP-14 to be “weird”. He may be right, but this gives you an easy way to use it.

Support for the STM8 version of the Discovery board is supposedly forthcoming.