Through the power of buying 2 of them, I can confirm that some units seem to work fine while others don’t. The second unit I bought seems to handle the power delivery fine and simply connecting the battery to the pads on the back is sufficient (no bridging connections, no code modifications, just a simple connection).
The first one I purchased, however, does not work. As mention previously, I can’t even detect the voltage from the pins when connecting them to my multimeter. However, the second one I bought does show voltage, powers the device, and runs the code without any issues. This seems to suggest there is a manufacturing flaw which is occurring. It’s a shame Seeed Studio has been quiet on this (I haven’t been able to find anything in the hours or researching this problem), since it seems to be not too uncommon. Hopefully they figure out what the defect is and resolve it. Not sure if I would be comfortable buying any project essential components from them until they do.
If you do purchase an ESP32C3 and the battery connection doesn’t work (even when serial.begin() isn’t used in any of your code), try returning it and purchasing a new one. You likely have a defective product.
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