Moving to ESP32

Someone already told me that once I move to ESP32 I won't want to go back to ESP8266.

Well, apart from the fact the ESP8266 is available in a tiny ESP-01 package, I think they may be right. The ESP32 in a WROOM-32 package is slightly wider than the ESP12 package, but because the GPIO pins can be mapped any way you want, pretty much, the tracking takes less space. So overall I was able to make an equivalent board in less space using ESP32.

The big challenge for me with ESP32 was the concern over the fine pitch - 0.9mm contacts at 1.27mm spacing. I was not sure I could either mill a PCB or solder a board at that pitch reliably.

I was wrong, I can!

New door controller using ESP32

Fixing the X axis backlash on my mill was a big help as well. So yes, I can use the ESP32 modules.

The other concern was the price, but it seems that getting a proper ESP32 is as cheap, if not cheaper, than an ESP12S. Yes, some cheap ESP12S can be got, without CE marks, and missing FCC ID, and not quite working well on WiFi. But £2.91 for ESP32-WROOM-32 from a reputable supplier is pretty good.

There are advantages to the ESP32, obviously, including much more RAM, faster, dual processor, more GPIO, more UARTs, and so on. It is a good comprehensive IoT device.

The other big change I want to make is moving away from Arduino IDE. Yes, Arduino makes things easy, but it turns out the Espressif IDF for ESP32 is pretty good. It has the key things like https, MQTT, OTA, and all sorts as standard.

So my plan is to make an ESP32 IDF based version of my door controller, including PN532, VL53L0X, etc. This should not be too hard, and a lot of my existing code can easily be ported to a simple C code environment.

I am, however, impressed with the documentation - not only of the APIs in the IDF, but also the technical reference manual. It actually details all of the registers clearly.

The other impressive thing is Espressif seem to to be trying to encourage some best practice in IoT. They have secure boot and signed images as a standard feature. Even https libraries, as standard. It means that making a reasonably secure IoT device is easy. Well done.

I managed to get the build environment working on Mac and linux with no problems, following the clear instructions. I built the "hello world" example, and flashed it with no problem.

I am off on a 4 hour flight shortly, so I have the 669 page PDF of the technical reference manual on an iPad for some light reading on the flight.

Of course, once I have this off the ground, I can look at Bluetooth, and CAN bus, and all sorts of new fun things.