The breakout add-on
The CTRL ONE's add-on system uses a set of 8 1.27mm pins that work perfectly with an add-on board, but the small size of the pins can make it difficult if you want to add your own custom wires. This breakout add-on board exposes 8 2.54mm pins, a standard size found on most electronics.
See the add-on documentation page for what each pin does, and how to do use them with ESPHome.
Works with standard jumper wires
Looking to connect that sensor you found off Amazon that's perfect for your usecase? With a set of female-to-female jumper wires, it's simple to connect it, no soldering or PCB manufacturing required. The headers are on the underside of the board, allowing it to fit within the thin profile of the CTRL ONE's enclosure.
Jumper wires not included.
Power it your way
The add-on header of the CTRL ONE exposes 3.3V, along with a VCC input that can accept anything between 5V - 28V of DC power. Use the VCC connection to power the CTRL ONE with an external power supply of your choice*, and the 3.3V can be used to power connected low-power sensors.
*Safety note: While every effort is made to ensure nothing bad will happen, we're not responsible for damage to the CTRL ONE or connected devices when caused by third-party power supplies. Do not use the USB port while powering the device through an external power supply.
Note: These early revision boards have a misprint. "IO9" should read "IO1" as it exposes GPIO1 on the ESP32. This will be corrected in future batches, and does not affect functionality.