Overview
Kleidos on the M5StickC Plus SE
Kleidos turns the M5StickC Plus SE into a password manager: it keeps your passwords encrypted on the board and types them into your computer over Bluetooth, after you unlock it on the board itself. The firmware costs nothing and asks for no account. There is nothing to install yet: version 0.1.0 is not released.
The same firmware runs on nine boards, and I recommend none of them over the others: this page is what the Plus SE does with it.
Updated
Kleidos on its own screen
I have not recorded the Plus SE yet. These are three frames I took straight off its own screen, with a demonstration vault on a development build: the PIN screen, the vault list and an entry.
Each picture's badge says how I made it, and the legend of the badges explains every kind.
- Device screen
What each control does
Each row quotes what the Plus SE itself shows for that control: on the pages it shows the first time it starts, or in the bar at the foot of its vault list.
| Control | What the board says it does |
|---|---|
| Button A, pressed (“big button below”) | “NEXT” |
| Button A, held | “OPEN”, “Hold A: PIN” |
| Button B, pressed (“small side button”) | “PREV” |
| Button B, held | “Hold B: back”, “PAGE” |
| The power button | “Power: lock” |
- Button A, pressed (“big button below”)
- What the board says it does: “NEXT”
- Button A, held
- What the board says it does: “OPEN”, “Hold A: PIN”
- Button B, pressed (“small side button”)
- What the board says it does: “PREV”
- Button B, held
- What the board says it does: “Hold B: back”, “PAGE”
- The power button
- What the board says it does: “Power: lock”
In the vault list a hold of B turns to the next page, because the list has nothing to go back to.
A hold is a press longer than 600 ms.
I will write a guide to every screen, board by board, once the interface stops changing.
What it holds, and how it keeps time
The vault is the same on every board. What changes with the board is how much it holds, how it keeps time for the one-time codes and where its backups go.
- Chip
- ESP32
- Input
- Two buttons
- Screen
- 135×240
- Case
- 24×48 mm
- Capacity
- 90 credentials, 30 two-factor codes
- Clock
- Battery-backed chip
- Card slot
- No: backups go through the panel
What it draws from its battery
What the Plus SE draws in each state, as the measurements page prints it, with what each state is and how each figure was taken.
-
M5StickC Plus SE
These figures are its own power controller's readings, which I have not checked against the measurement system, taken on a development build from before it had light sleep, with a prototype that lets the idle chip drop to a slower clock, which the shipped firmware does not have. Without figures from that instrument, I give no battery estimate for it. I publish no unlock time for it yet.
- Asleep
- not yet
- Light sleep
- not yet
- Normal use
- 69.0 mA
- own sensor
- Wi-Fi
- 153.5 mA
- own sensor
- Bluetooth
- 85.4 mA
- own sensor
Switches off at its power controller, which stays awake to switch it back on, and draws while it waits.
What it costs
Kleidos costs nothing: there is nothing to buy from the project and no account to make, and the firmware is free software under GPL-3.0-or-later. What you pay for is the board.
- Price
- US$19.00
- Listed by
- M5Stack's own store
- Product code
- K016-P-SE
- Read on
- 1 November 2026
That is what the maker's own store asked on the day I read it, before shipping and taxes. Resellers ask their own, and the price moves.
Where the firmware stands
Kleidos is pre-release, at version 0.1.0: there is nothing to install yet, and the roadmap says what is left before the first release.
- Version
- 0.1.0
- To install
- Nothing yet: no release is published
- Hardened build
- Not available (4 MB flash)
I have not had the firmware or the cryptography reviewed by anybody outside the project; the security page says what you can and cannot check.