So many of us have been happily using in the inexpensive ESP8266 chips for some time now for IOT applications, home control etc and long may that continue. They do have SOME issues – for example they are short of RAM memory to the point that all except critical subroutines have to be stored in FLASH and pulled out when needed. The somewhat slows things down as the 80Mhz processor (160Mhz at a pinch) has to pull stuff out of the external serial FLASH to use it. In practice the ESP8266 is still very fast but this is just one step that would be nice to avoid. Lack of IO lines also is a little painful as so many of the available lines are dual purpose – GPIO0 for example cannot be held low on powerup as it is used to put the processor into programming mode. We get around these issues but wouldn’t it be nice if we didn’t have to.
By the look of it, the upcoming ESP32 will have more RAM (400KB) and more IO (close to 40 !!!) IPV6, a little more expensive – we’re hoping not MUCH more as initially Espressif were saying it would not be more expensive! Bluetooth will be supported, there’s a dual processor (two powerful Tensilica L108 processors), better security, faster WIFI (the WIFI will have it’s own processor hence no more worrying about delays – that’ll be a relief) – and low power. QFN packaging.
All sounds very exciting and thanks to Espressif and readers in here for bringing this to my attention.
Yes this is complete IoT solution.Hope nodeMCU like support will immediately available.
WOOT!
Bye bye world!!! Well I just got into programming the ESP on linux as I had a spare laptop running around. This is an interesting development indeed.
As always you are the source for info Pete.
Have fun
It would be nice to have the possibility to have BLE On in low power mode and WiFi Off, switching WiFi On/Off on demand. I’m really looking forward to this chip and it’s possibilities, hopefully another game changer!
Yes well of course the thing is – how long will it take Espressif to get the new one compatible with for example Arduino. It took ages before someone came out with a decent Windows environment like the one I use now – and even longer before we had a fully working MQTT environment thanks to TUAN. I hope the span is a bit shorter as clearly many of us will want to get on with doing our thing, not starting from scratch. Time will tell and I’ve applied for the kit – no doubt I’ll be able to report back before long.
It’s interesting that John Lee’s twitter announcement specifically contained (in the Espressif release letter) an invitation for developers to come and work with them, either in Shanghai, or remotely. John was also replying to individual developers with (to paraphrase) “That’s very cool; come talk to us”. It’s encouraging that Espressif continues to actively “engage” with the community, so perhaps we can at least hope for a smoother ride this time round (with the SDK probably being the area where most of us would appreciate a bit more work put in -before- the release).
John Lee has also just noted (on twitter, again) that “…ESP32 is not a replacement for ESP8266!” and that they target slightly different markets. It’s interesting to speculate exactly what that implies. Has the new chip development been driven by a specific, third-party requirement? Espressif enabled light bulbs? :^)
Well I’ve heard nothing back recently… I’m just hoping they are going to send me a dev kit so I can get on with it. Time will tell.
This is going to be good, if they can keep the price down to where I can get them for approximately the price of some pocket lint then I’ll be grateful. I love the esp8266 for being cheap as dirt and (now) arduino compatible
A W E S O M E
Waiting for price and samples !
The future is here.
Fernando
I am especially excited about the BLE. We’ll see more and more interesting projects that work with wifi and bluetooth.