Thread

1. jameshart · 1790255500 · focus · HN ↗

   The range of difference in capabilities of different boards branded ESP32 is getting larger. Makes it tricky to figure out when someone says ‘you can run this on an ESP32’ what level of hardware investment is required.

   1. philipallstar · 1790257295 · focus · HN ↗

      I am really struggling to understand what ESP32 is. I've got into adjacent things a bit recently, but haven't figured that one out yet.

      1. the__alchemist · 1790258610 · focus · HN ↗

         It's a family of microcontrollers by Espressif. A microcontroller (MCU) is a type of integrated circuit (IC: physical appearance: Black rectangle of epoxy with exposed metal tabs). It has, in the same IC, a CPU, RAM, non-volatile FLASH memory, and a collection of peripherals which vary depending on the MCU. These usually include I/O protocols, ADCs, DACs, DMA controllers, math processors etc.

         Stated another way: An MCU, like the ESP32, is a tiny computer, sans the hardware you physically interface with it.

         The computing power, and memory is much lower than your desktop or laptop PC (or mobile phone), but if you are using it to run a dedicated task, instead of using a big OS like Linux or Windows, it can complete the tasks really fast (often microseconds) and with minimal power use. This is because it's easy to program to do exactly what you need, with nothing competing for the hardware.

         A note on ESP in particular compared to other MCUs: It's one of the only (Or was?) options which has Wi-Fi integrated into the MCU itself. It's a good default if you want that.

         1. swiftcoder · 1790261243 · focus · HN ↗

            > I's one of the only (Or was?) options which has Wi-Fi integrated into the MCU itself. It's a good default if you want that.

            Indeed. The closest direct competitor is likely the Nordic nRF52840, which does bluetooth + thread, but can't talk actual wifi

            1. tredre3 · 1790262584 · focus · HN ↗

               The closest direct competitor is Bouffalo Lab's BL6xx chips, which do bluetooth and wifi and have an open SDK. Their documentation is very poor unfortunately (at least in English).

               Otherwise NXP recently released their RW6xx line with wifi/bt/thread/zigbee. But as with any other western maker, the documentation and SDK aren't as easily accessible to mere mortals (but I think NXP in particular has gotten better with this).

               1. mrheosuper · 1790320140 · focus · HN ↗

                  There are a lot of competitors, in fact, in term of value the ESP32 is really bad.

                  The only thing Espressif does good is SDK support.

            2. trklausss · 1790288015 · focus · HN ↗

               That’s crazy to me: they already have to go through certification for the 2.4GHz stuff, why not include a lower wifi standard in there (for the 2.4GHz band)…

               1. brokenmachine · 1790313003 · focus · HN ↗

                  It's probably for power reasons, the nrf series are really great on power consumption.

                  1. swiftcoder · 1790330596 · focus · HN ↗

                     Yeah, if you look at a flagship nRF52840 board like the Xiao Seed, it ships with an integrated lithium charge controller, and just 5 μA power draw in deep sleep. If you are building any small battery-operated device, it's a no-brainer

                     1. m-p-3 · 1790357057 · focus · HN ↗

                        I had to choose between an ESP-based and nRF-based MCU for my MeshCore node, the power consumption between the two made it obvious the nRF one was the way to go for a solar-powered repeater.

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