Embedded Lab

Hackaday has posted a quick tutorial on how to get started with the ESP32, the successor of ESP8266 WiFi MCU, with both WiFi and Bluetooth Low Energy radios built in.

The ESP32 module comes preloaded with a ROM image with an AT command set, just like the ESP8266 did. If you want to waste 95% of this chip’s potential by using it as a glorified serial-to-WiFi modem, you’re all set! But you all want to dig in, right? Right!

The toolchain for programming the ESP32 in C is pretty straightforward. You’ll need Espressif’s software library (esp-idf), a cross-compiler and build tools that are specific to the chip (xtensa-esp32-*), and a utility to flash the resulting binary file to the device. I’ll guide you thought that and then we’ll get Espressif’s demo application compiled and flashed in, at which point everything’s up and running.