SixBack — Boards, Variants & Manual Install

← back to the one-click installer

🔍 Identify my board

Optional, read-only: reads chip type, flash size and (on the S3 and C5) PSRAM straight off the board, then marks the image on this page that fits. Nothing is written and the board keeps running afterwards. If none of the images below fit, your board uses the standard installer.

Standard boards — install or update over USB

The same images as the one-click installer, plus the USB update path. The right chip image is selected automatically (ESP32 / S3 / C3 / C6 / C5).


Fresh install — writes the complete image
Update existing — keeps WiFi + presets + Spotify auth

If the flasher offers to erase the device, leave the box unticked. It asks whenever it cannot read the firmware name off the stick (normal once a board has been running for a while). Update existing writes no bootloader — erasing first would leave the stick unable to start. Devices already running SixBack can skip the flasher entirely: the stick's own ⚙ SYSTEM → Update updates over WiFi and never touches settings.

ESP32-S3 with 8 MB flash (Seeed XIAO ESP32S3 & similar)

The standard buttons flash the 16 MB S3 layout. Boards with only 8 MB flash + PSRAM (e.g. Seeed XIAO ESP32S3) need this dedicated image — the standard one does not fit and the flash would fail partway through.


Fresh install (S3 8 MB) — writes the complete image
Update existing (S3 8 MB) — keeps settings

The Nxx in the module name tells the flash size: N8… = 8 MB, N16… = 16 MB. XIAO ESP32S3 / Sense = 8 MB; XIAO ESP32S3 Plus = 16 MB (standard buttons). PSRAM is required either way. Use the update button only for the variant the device was originally flashed with — already-flashed devices show their layout in the Web UI status line ("ESP32-S3 8MB" / "16MB").
Manual flashing (esptool): factory @0x0 · firmware @0x10000 · littlefs @0x610000

ESP32-C5 with 16 MB flash + PSRAM (N16R8 modules)

The standard buttons flash the C5 image laid out for 4 MB boards. It runs on a 16 MB board too, but leaves 12 MB of flash and the entire in-package PSRAM unused. Boards with an ESP32-C5-WROOM-1-N16R8 module (16 MB flash + 8 MB PSRAM) should use this dedicated image — it uses the full flash and enables the PSRAM, which lifts the tight-memory limits of the small C5 (Spotify support, online OTA, far more headroom for many speakers).


Fresh install (C5 16 MB) — writes the complete image
Update existing (C5 16 MB) — keeps settings

Not sure which C5 you have? Use 🔍 Identify my board above — it reads the flash size and the PSRAM eFuse off the chip and marks the right pair. Use the update button only for the variant the device was originally flashed with — a device running the 4 MB layout keeps using the standard update button until it is re-installed once with this image (settings survive that switch; the storage layout of the settings area is identical).
Manual flashing (esptool ≥ 5): factory @0x0 · firmware @0x10000 · littlefs @0x610000

Notes per board

ESP32-S3-DevKitC-1 has two USB sockets — since v0.8.35 you can use either one. The socket labelled UART appears as a CH340/CH343 serial port and also carries the console log. The board's native USB socket works for the complete run as well — factory flash and the “Connect device to Wi-Fi” step — because the image answers the provisioning handshake on both ports. Two harmless quirks: an “Error fetching current state: TIMEOUT” in the browser console at ~88 % of the flash (the flash completes normally), and on the native socket the console log shares the port with the handshake, so rarely the browser reports “Improv Wi-Fi Serial not detected” — retry, use the UART socket, or set up WiFi through the SixBack-… hotspot the stick opens.
Auto-migration runs by default. Right after WiFi provisioning, SixBack discovers every SoundTouch speaker on your LAN (SoundTouch 10/20/30) and rewrites its cloud URLs to point at the stick — each speaker reboots once (~60 s), existing presets are preserved, and a periodic check picks up newcomers. To drive migrations by hand instead, open http://sixback.local/ right after provisioning and switch Auto-Migrate at Boot off before discovery finishes.
Recommended hardware: ESP32-S3-DevKitC-1-N16R8 — 16 MB flash, 8 MB PSRAM, the most robust target in extended testing. Only the ESP32-C5 speaks 2.4 + 5 GHz WiFi — pick it if your network runs on 5 GHz, ideally the 16 MB N16R8 variant above. Every other target is 2.4 GHz only. Web Serial needs a Chromium desktop browser (Chrome, Edge, Opera, Brave).

How it works

  1. The install button reads the chip family from the boot ROM and selects the matching factory image from the manifest.
  2. The factory image — bootloader + partition table + firmware + Web UI — is written in one shot.
  3. After reboot, SixBack waits for WiFi credentials (Improv); the flasher offers the Connect device to Wi-Fi step right away.
  4. The device comes up as sixback.local — open http://sixback.local/ to manage your speakers.

Manual install (esptool)

Each target ships three artefacts: …-factory.bin (full image → 0x0), …-firmware.bin (app only, for OTA) and …-littlefs.bin (Web UI, for FS-OTA). Example:

esptool.py --chip esp32s3 -p /dev/ttyACM0 write_flash 0x0 sixback-s3-factory.bin
…