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From what I've seen the Qualcomm chips are really great but impossible to buy if you're a normal human, the ST chips are pretty solid and have a configuration t

From what I've seen the Qualcomm chips are really great but impossible to buy if you're a normal human, the ST chips are pretty solid and have a configuration tool that works well in Linux and their -WB versions support wireless and bluetooth but use more power than the Qualcomm chips. Then there's microchip (owner of atmel) which has a wifi integrated chip, but it was really hard to get to work. ESP32 was also super easy to get to work, and I prefer it to the microchip series, see it as a budget version of the ST chips (uses a lot more power but that's fine if it's not on a power limit), and much easier to source than the chips that are meaningfully better. So yeah, plenty of vendors of equivalent functionality, just different ecosystems for the firmware, of course RISC-V isn't the same as ARM (which the older ESP32 used) so that introduces some quirks into the toolchain, and of course the vendors chips aren't pin-compatible. You're definitely making a new board if you swap the microcontroller because it's out of stock, that's nearly impossible to avoid -- your best hope is to pick a vendor with a good track record or just buy all your inventory up front, and if you're super lucky the vendor will sell different versions with the same footprint and basic design with different amounts of RAM and such with different availability so that you can swap chips based on supply chain stuff for short term issues. But a lot of these chips are still made by TSMC I'm sure, so I'm not sure it really addresses the root of how few companies are at the root of the supply chain.

pta2002 6y ago
AFAIK the older ESP chips used Xtensa, not ARM.
- neltnerb 6y ago
  Thanks for the correction, when I was reading the datasheets to implement it somehow this distinction never came up. Compilers are pretty great! I hope it continues to not matter with RISC-V cores =)
numpad0 6y ago
I don’t understand why this is downvoted gray. “We’d like to dual source a Wi-Fi SoC product” — fine, just build two completely different hardware and software to go with, with matching aesthetics and features. There’s no way around it, there’s usually no pin-compatible alternatives in embedded like there are for Core i7 and Core i3. That only works in consumer PC.
- neltnerb 6y ago
  I said that the old ESP32 was using ARM which as the other reply comment notes was inaccurate? Not that the mistake I made on the architecture of an older chip reduces the responsiveness to the actual question, of course, but it was an error. This site has gotten extremely aggressive about downvoting for "disagreement" which seems to include minor errors (like with mine, despite paragraphs of correct information in direct response to a clear question) or often even questions. I don't really see how downvoting posts with minor errors encourages learning and hacking, but it definitely makes me reconsider answering questions.

pta2002 6y ago

AFAIK the older ESP chips used Xtensa, not ARM.

neltnerb 6y ago
Thanks for the correction, when I was reading the datasheets to implement it somehow this distinction never came up. Compilers are pretty great! I hope it continues to not matter with RISC-V cores =)

numpad0 6y ago

I don’t understand why this is downvoted gray. “We’d like to dual source a Wi-Fi SoC product” — fine, just build two completely different hardware and software to go with, with matching aesthetics and features. There’s no way around it, there’s usually no pin-compatible alternatives in embedded like there are for Core i7 and Core i3. That only works in consumer PC.

neltnerb 6y ago
I said that the old ESP32 was using ARM which as the other reply comment notes was inaccurate? Not that the mistake I made on the architecture of an older chip reduces the responsiveness to the actual question, of course, but it was an error. This site has gotten extremely aggressive about downvoting for "disagreement" which seems to include minor errors (like with mine, despite paragraphs of correct information in direct response to a clear question) or often even questions. I don't really see how downvoting posts with minor errors encourages learning and hacking, but it definitely makes me reconsider answering questions.