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It's interesting how the ESP32 has become the de facto IoT MCU used in almost all new IoT products. Other companies like TI and STMicro had their own cheap WiF

It's interesting how the ESP32 has become the de facto IoT MCU used in almost all new IoT products. Other companies like TI and STMicro had their own cheap WiFi/BLE MCUs but their devkits used to be too expensive for hobbyists and students. But the Chinese startup behind the ESPxx chips made sure that their devkits were cheap enough for hobbyists and students and through that influence they now also dominate the professional industry.

topbanana 4y ago
> they now also dominate the professional industry. is that true? it wasn't a couple of years ago.
- keewee7 4y ago
  I only meant IoT devices. Most embedded systems that don't have WiFi/BLE requirements are probably using ARM32, MSP430 or AVR.
  - luma 4y ago
    Mostly only IoT devices from Asia. There are a small handful of things coming out of the west on ESP32, but professional users still stay away as they don't have the kind of engineering connections into Wwstern industries that Nordic et al do. That includes sales reps, training, etc etc. The things that matter to large engineering firms aren't really present from Espressif (although I wish them well and the ESP32 is an awesome platform).
    - antoniuschan99 4y ago
      Yea, I would assume a large percentage of startups that use Wi-Fi adopt esp32 since it's much easier and cheaper to get up and running compared to the competition. More established companies don't need to adopt it but I assume it will change as time goes on. Kind of like how Webview or React Native was scoffed at in the beginning but now it's pretty commonplace even at large companies. Or like when Twilio IPO'ed it started targeting larger firms by building out their sales department because at the time it was mainly a hobbyist platform. Esp8266 doesn't have Flash Encryption, or Secure Boot, whereas Esp32 does and Espressifs SDK ESP-IDF is maturing. So it's definitely going that direction. Nordic announced its Espressif Competitor but haven't released the cost yet. Espressif seems to be throwing things at the wall to see what sticks (S2, S3, C6, H2, etc). I think their IPO definitely helped them raise more cash to do more things. They also had a virtual conference with a bunch of talks https://www.youtube.com/@EspressifSystems https://www.youtube.com/@EspressifSystems
- mmoskal 4y ago
  Espressif seems to be pulling $180m per year [0], so I guess on the order of 100m devices. The likes of ST and NXP have 10-20x the revenue, but I would venture the majority of what they are selling isn't connected. Nordic revenue was $600m, most of it BLE likely. So I guess Espressif is somewhat significant but definitely not dominant. [0] https://www.espressif.com/sites/default/files/financial/Espressif%20Systems%20Q3%202022%20Report.pdf https://www.espressif.com/sites/default/files/financial/Espr...
zajio1am 4y ago
Which is sad, considering how bad is ESP32 documentation compared to other microcontrollers.
- fest 4y ago
  While I do agree with you, I haven't found the lack of depth in register-level documentation too limiting. On the other hand, I find esp-idf much easier to use than STM32 HAL library and a lot easier to integrate in projects (I do like cmake).
  - mmoskal 4y ago
    Definitely agree on the HAL. I didn't find the ESP32 docs too lacking though (for UART etc; for Wifi/BLE docs are non-existent of course). With STM32 they often have 3+ different kinds of timers (advanced, basic, sometimes also low-power). Instead of having one chapter about all of them and saying this and that feature is only available in TIM1, they will copy&paste the 100+ pages chapter for every kind of timer... They must be auto-generating this stuff somehow. edit: The NRF52 docs and architecture are much nicer than both (the registers seem to be designed by a programmer not a hardware person).
  - phh 4y ago
    Gotta say, I just don't understand STM32's "HAL". ST's headers has proper macros (and structs IIRC), and it's so much more readable by just using those macros rather than the weird indirection library which is still a 1:1 match with hardware registers
    - kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
      HAL is designed to work with their code generator across product families. It suffers from design mistakes that can't be fixed. Their LL library provides a lower degree of abstraction while still affording ease of migration and is harder for them to screw up.
- JoeAltmaier 4y ago
  Everybody has their preference. But none of them are well documented. And all BSPs are buggy messes.
Youden 4y ago
ESP32 is dominant for WiFi devices but I'd say Nordic nRF is dominant for Bluetooth and BLE. You see it a lot in IoT sensors (like Ruuvi tags) and things like BLE keyboards (at least the DIY mechanical ones, in the form of the nice!nano).
- m-p-3 4y ago
  There's also the BangleJS2 smartwatch that runs on an nRF52840 https://www.espruino.com/Bangle.js2 https://www.espruino.com/Bangle.js2
- float4 4y ago
  > You see it a lot in IoT sensors (like Ruuvi tags) Even Apple AirTags (nRF52832 to be precise). https://www.ifixit.com/News/50145/airtag-teardown-part-one-yeah-this-tracks https://www.ifixit.com/News/50145/airtag-teardown-part-one-y...
- solarkraft 4y ago
  I think this may be because they're very good at consuming little power. That's not exactly the ESP's domain (though you can kind of make it work), with WiFi itself being more power-intensive. Let's remember that when the ESP8266 came out, it was basically the only WiFi MCU you could just use. Maybe there were others, but they had no community, so Espressif won out for the makers. And the makers went on to ... make ... IoT devices.
  - rektide 4y ago
    It's wild how few have stepped up to making wifi, even now, while Espressif made it easy & cheap back in 2014. Nordic is just getting around to it, for example, with then nRF7002 chip announced this summer, but it's notably just a companion chip, has no microconyroller available for your application, & modules as compared to espessif are pretty pricey. It is at least wifi-6 ehich Espressif announced ~18 months ago but afaik still isnt sampling. There's a Realtek part but lacks the documentation/support to be hobbyist usablrle. As for power consumption, yeah, Nordic is pretty good. I feel like Silicon Labs is often the primary pick for low power.
dbuder 4y ago
The TI chips were like 16usd in volume it looked like a mess from the datasheet anyway
ostenning 4y ago
I feel like Nordic offerings are more attractive these days
- somrand0 4y ago
  could you post some hyper-links to said offerings?
  - bbbbb5 4y ago
    https://www.nordicsemi.com/products https://www.nordicsemi.com/products
- bodydouble 4y ago
  But impossible to get hands on supply, or am I missing something?
nickthenerd 4y ago
> de facto IoT MCU Not at all, at least not professionally. Mostly mocked and avoided professionally. But prosumer and hobbyist, it’s probably the most popular. They are fun to prototype with and use around the house but I would never stake my business on them.
- jki275 4y ago
  I've never heard of them being mocked or avoided professionally. They're not usually the go-to or the most popular, but I've got no issue using them in a professional device.
- sidpatil 4y ago
  What are some reasons for that?
- Zagitta 4y ago
  Perhaps they're mocked and avoided in your sphere but there's certainly plenty of consumer products using them. Both sonoff and Tuya produce enormous amounts of products with them. What exactly is your problem with them? The chips are fairly capable and the newest ones have transitioned to RiscV in case you're unaware. Sure I wouldn't use them for anything serious realtime but that rarely requires wifi/ble anyway so not sure why you'd pick an ESP to begin with for that :)
- solarkraft 4y ago
  Why not? Plenty of businesses like Sonoff do just that. In fact it's a selling point for a lot of them.
  - gregmac 4y ago
    Absolutely. I've bought several things specifically because they use esp32 and I can flash Tasmota or EspHome on them. In fact it's a far bigger factor than price.
okso 4y ago
RISC-V might change the game soon with chips such as the Boufallo Lab BL616/BL618 RISC-V MCU. > Boufallo Lab BL616/BL618 is a 32-bit RISC-V wireless microcontroller with support for 2.4 GHz WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.2 dual-mode, and an 802.15.4 radio for Zigbee, Thread, and Matter designed for IoT applications. [1] Boufallo chips are becoming available on Pine64 products (Ox64, Star64, Pinecil) [2]. [1] https://www.cnx-software.com/2022/12/29/boufallo-lab-bl616-bl618-risc-v-mcu-wifi-6-bluetooth-5-2-zigbee/ https://www.cnx-software.com/2022/12/29/boufallo-lab-bl616-b... [2] https://www.pine64.org/2022/11/15/november-update-tuned-in/ https://www.pine64.org/2022/11/15/november-update-tuned-in/
- solarkraft 4y ago
  Maybe, but Espressif already has their own RISC-V chip (ESP32-C), which is perfectly compatible with their development platform (IDF), with a Thread-compatible model (ESP32-H2) coming next year. Both cheap and profiting from the big community. I'll buy an Ox64 (the ability to run Linux interested me), but Espressif isn't giving up easily. A few years ago, when Espressif was in more of a niche, it would've been an advantage to not have to use their weird Xtensa instruction set. But nowadays most toolchains have apparently added support and it's not a big problem anymore.
  - petre 4y ago
    It seems to be a direct competitor to the ESP32-C6 which also has WiFi 6, BLE and 802.15.4. It will only be supported in v5.1 of the IDF, so not quite there yet. https://www.espressif.com/en/products/socs https://www.espressif.com/en/products/socs
  - omniscient_oce 4y ago
    The Linux support on the Ox64 is supposedly pretty poor so far.
- numpad0 4y ago
  It’s not the matter of CPU arch, raw performance or even power consumption. “640KB of RAM” is all you ever need in a great range of use cases that isn't currently well explored, and ESP8266/ESP32 serves that market very well with Arduino IDE integration and affordable devkits. e: added absolutely necessary positivity to languages, sorry!
antihero 4y ago
Yet again the most frictionless solution wins out. Who’d have thought? If only there were examples of this being the case…
Saris 4y ago
Also easy support by Arduino probably helps a lot of people get going, a lot of MCUs can be hard to get started with for people new to embedded programming.
PragmaticPulp 4y ago
Price and availability had a lot to do with it. When you’re trying to squeeze every dollar out of a BOM, the cheapest chip that gets the job done is going to win. The TI and STM parts were more expensive and less available, so they did not win. The landscape is slowly evolving, though. Espressif is getting a reputation as the Raspberry Pi of IoT MCUs: Easy to get started and everyone knows about it, but too many people are trying to use it in places where it’s not really the right tool for the job. A few years ago I’d hear “can’t you just use a Raspberry Pi…” from people who knew just enough to be dangerous. Now it’s “can’t you just use an ESP32…”
- fest 4y ago
  Well, since ESP32 is available as chip, you can design a product which is just as robust, safe, resistant to ambient temperature effects, manufacturable at scale as you could with any other TI/ST alternative. With Raspberry Pi, up until the introduction of compute module you would still have been limited to whatever board-level properties Raspberry Pi foundation decided to go (limited temperature range, flakey USB sockets that don't tolerate high vibration, requiring hand assembly, difficulties sourcing reliable SD cards, default OS settings wearing out the SD card, difficulties sourcing in large quantities etc)- in addition to the same judgement on the side of person implementing the design.
ilyt 4y ago
It's not just devkits being cheap (there have been plenty of knockoff cheap ST boards) its * integrated WiFi/BT with no/near zero extra engineering needed * generous amount of RAM/Flash so you can afford to be sloppy * SDK making it fast to get to the "the wifi is working and I can get on with my development" * momentum from ESP8266 that already (due to same "super cheap with wifi") had a chunk of market. Even now in middle of chipaggedon you can get WIFI/BT breakout board for like $3-5. That's not "just" "cheap enough for hobbyist breadboard", that's cheap enough to get the whole product built around. I think partly due to how cheap WiFi/BT has become the likes of Zigbee didn't got as popular as they probably should, between licensing costs it was just cheaper for IoT companies to not touch it, even if it would make more sense in places.
- psychphysic 4y ago
  Also Arduino IDE programmable fairly early on. Before boards manager stuff iirc. It went from hackaday being lol you can use this WiFi module like a MCU. To why would you ever do anything else?
- phpisthebest 4y ago
  in IoT wifi became commerically successful over zigbee for 2 reasons, the cost was not one of them IMO 1. Vendors want Cloud control over the product, they want it to phone home. Zigbee is built for Local Control 2. Consumers prefer "hub free" products that just "work", They are willing to give up privacy, security and possible performance issues for that convenience. They do not think or care about what will happen when their shitty comcast service breaks for the 100th time this year, or if the IoT vendor is hacked, they want to pull out of the box, and have an app connect it in 2 seconds via a QR Code so they can blink the light quickly and not have a fuss about with a hub. WiFi is better than Zigbee at both of these things. Zigbee is beter for home automation where you want Local Control, and security. Local control and security has been losing that battle though the tide seems to be turning lately (I hope )
  - tinco 4y ago
    I don't see the advantage of Zigbee for local control. Implementing local control over wifi is just as easy and can even work without a hub. I'm designing a custom automation system for the ventilation in my house and I failed to discover any reason to use Zigbee.
phpisthebest 4y ago
I wonder why Hardware vendors like TI and STMicro did not learn the lesson from Software Vendors like Microsoft, Adobe, and to a lessor degree Google. Who have long offered their software free or heavily discounted for students because then they would demand that software when they entered the workforce and businesses would pay out the nose for it.
- mrWiz 4y ago
  TI was extremely generous with free IC samples when I was a student, so at least some of the company learned that lesson.
  - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
    yeah its just that as a student or hobbyist, an IC without a board is of limited use
    - mrWiz 4y ago
      As a student, I certainly wouldn't buy into a WiFI SoC platform without reasonably-priced boards, good SDK, etc. But I did find free access to their bare ICs very useful at the time.
deleted 4y ago
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Rebelgecko 4y ago
Not just price- Espressif has done a really good job making their SDK and hardware documentation available to overseas hobbyists. Even hiring an English speaking dev to work SDK features that people were asking for in English, and doing a good job communicating with/engaging with the community. They're not great if you're coming from solely-software land, but their SDK and dev experience (you can just use the Arduino IDE for a gentler learning curve, step up to FreeRTOS, esp-idf, or go more bare-metal) is still leaps and bounds ahead of competitors, like the STM32CUBE cluster fuck...using their Hal was the only time in my life where deleting whitespace in C code could break a build. If the developer experience is awful, it doesn't matter that the STM32 chips perform better per second and per watt than an ESP32.
- TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
  Or in my case - if you can not buy the STM32 at all, while ESP32 is in stock just fine.
deleted 4y ago
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naasking 4y ago
> But the Chinese startup behind the ESPxx chips made sure that their devkits were cheap enough for hobbyists and students and through that influence they now also dominate the professional industry. The rest of the industry failing to learn from how Microsoft came to dominance by basically ignoring piracy among students and private individuals.

topbanana 4y ago

> they now also dominate the professional industry. is that true? it wasn't a couple of years ago.

keewee7 4y ago
I only meant IoT devices. Most embedded systems that don't have WiFi/BLE requirements are probably using ARM32, MSP430 or AVR.
- luma 4y ago
  Mostly only IoT devices from Asia. There are a small handful of things coming out of the west on ESP32, but professional users still stay away as they don't have the kind of engineering connections into Wwstern industries that Nordic et al do. That includes sales reps, training, etc etc. The things that matter to large engineering firms aren't really present from Espressif (although I wish them well and the ESP32 is an awesome platform).
  - antoniuschan99 4y ago
    Yea, I would assume a large percentage of startups that use Wi-Fi adopt esp32 since it's much easier and cheaper to get up and running compared to the competition. More established companies don't need to adopt it but I assume it will change as time goes on. Kind of like how Webview or React Native was scoffed at in the beginning but now it's pretty commonplace even at large companies. Or like when Twilio IPO'ed it started targeting larger firms by building out their sales department because at the time it was mainly a hobbyist platform. Esp8266 doesn't have Flash Encryption, or Secure Boot, whereas Esp32 does and Espressifs SDK ESP-IDF is maturing. So it's definitely going that direction. Nordic announced its Espressif Competitor but haven't released the cost yet. Espressif seems to be throwing things at the wall to see what sticks (S2, S3, C6, H2, etc). I think their IPO definitely helped them raise more cash to do more things. They also had a virtual conference with a bunch of talks https://www.youtube.com/@EspressifSystems https://www.youtube.com/@EspressifSystems
mmoskal 4y ago
Espressif seems to be pulling $180m per year [0], so I guess on the order of 100m devices. The likes of ST and NXP have 10-20x the revenue, but I would venture the majority of what they are selling isn't connected. Nordic revenue was $600m, most of it BLE likely. So I guess Espressif is somewhat significant but definitely not dominant. [0] https://www.espressif.com/sites/default/files/financial/Espressif%20Systems%20Q3%202022%20Report.pdf https://www.espressif.com/sites/default/files/financial/Espr...

zajio1am 4y ago

Which is sad, considering how bad is ESP32 documentation compared to other microcontrollers.

fest 4y ago
While I do agree with you, I haven't found the lack of depth in register-level documentation too limiting. On the other hand, I find esp-idf much easier to use than STM32 HAL library and a lot easier to integrate in projects (I do like cmake).
- mmoskal 4y ago
  Definitely agree on the HAL. I didn't find the ESP32 docs too lacking though (for UART etc; for Wifi/BLE docs are non-existent of course). With STM32 they often have 3+ different kinds of timers (advanced, basic, sometimes also low-power). Instead of having one chapter about all of them and saying this and that feature is only available in TIM1, they will copy&paste the 100+ pages chapter for every kind of timer... They must be auto-generating this stuff somehow. edit: The NRF52 docs and architecture are much nicer than both (the registers seem to be designed by a programmer not a hardware person).
- phh 4y ago
  Gotta say, I just don't understand STM32's "HAL". ST's headers has proper macros (and structs IIRC), and it's so much more readable by just using those macros rather than the weird indirection library which is still a 1:1 match with hardware registers
  - kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
    HAL is designed to work with their code generator across product families. It suffers from design mistakes that can't be fixed. Their LL library provides a lower degree of abstraction while still affording ease of migration and is harder for them to screw up.
JoeAltmaier 4y ago
Everybody has their preference. But none of them are well documented. And all BSPs are buggy messes.

Youden 4y ago

ESP32 is dominant for WiFi devices but I'd say Nordic nRF is dominant for Bluetooth and BLE. You see it a lot in IoT sensors (like Ruuvi tags) and things like BLE keyboards (at least the DIY mechanical ones, in the form of the nice!nano).

m-p-3 4y ago
There's also the BangleJS2 smartwatch that runs on an nRF52840 https://www.espruino.com/Bangle.js2 https://www.espruino.com/Bangle.js2
float4 4y ago
> You see it a lot in IoT sensors (like Ruuvi tags) Even Apple AirTags (nRF52832 to be precise). https://www.ifixit.com/News/50145/airtag-teardown-part-one-yeah-this-tracks https://www.ifixit.com/News/50145/airtag-teardown-part-one-y...
solarkraft 4y ago
I think this may be because they're very good at consuming little power. That's not exactly the ESP's domain (though you can kind of make it work), with WiFi itself being more power-intensive. Let's remember that when the ESP8266 came out, it was basically the only WiFi MCU you could just use. Maybe there were others, but they had no community, so Espressif won out for the makers. And the makers went on to ... make ... IoT devices.
- rektide 4y ago
  It's wild how few have stepped up to making wifi, even now, while Espressif made it easy & cheap back in 2014. Nordic is just getting around to it, for example, with then nRF7002 chip announced this summer, but it's notably just a companion chip, has no microconyroller available for your application, & modules as compared to espessif are pretty pricey. It is at least wifi-6 ehich Espressif announced ~18 months ago but afaik still isnt sampling. There's a Realtek part but lacks the documentation/support to be hobbyist usablrle. As for power consumption, yeah, Nordic is pretty good. I feel like Silicon Labs is often the primary pick for low power.

dbuder 4y ago

The TI chips were like 16usd in volume it looked like a mess from the datasheet anyway

ostenning 4y ago

I feel like Nordic offerings are more attractive these days

somrand0 4y ago
could you post some hyper-links to said offerings?
- bbbbb5 4y ago
  https://www.nordicsemi.com/products https://www.nordicsemi.com/products
bodydouble 4y ago
But impossible to get hands on supply, or am I missing something?

nickthenerd 4y ago

> de facto IoT MCU Not at all, at least not professionally. Mostly mocked and avoided professionally. But prosumer and hobbyist, it’s probably the most popular. They are fun to prototype with and use around the house but I would never stake my business on them.

jki275 4y ago
I've never heard of them being mocked or avoided professionally. They're not usually the go-to or the most popular, but I've got no issue using them in a professional device.
sidpatil 4y ago
What are some reasons for that?
Zagitta 4y ago
Perhaps they're mocked and avoided in your sphere but there's certainly plenty of consumer products using them. Both sonoff and Tuya produce enormous amounts of products with them. What exactly is your problem with them? The chips are fairly capable and the newest ones have transitioned to RiscV in case you're unaware. Sure I wouldn't use them for anything serious realtime but that rarely requires wifi/ble anyway so not sure why you'd pick an ESP to begin with for that :)
solarkraft 4y ago
Why not? Plenty of businesses like Sonoff do just that. In fact it's a selling point for a lot of them.
- gregmac 4y ago
  Absolutely. I've bought several things specifically because they use esp32 and I can flash Tasmota or EspHome on them. In fact it's a far bigger factor than price.

okso 4y ago

RISC-V might change the game soon with chips such as the Boufallo Lab BL616/BL618 RISC-V MCU. > Boufallo Lab BL616/BL618 is a 32-bit RISC-V wireless microcontroller with support for 2.4 GHz WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.2 dual-mode, and an 802.15.4 radio for Zigbee, Thread, and Matter designed for IoT applications. [1] Boufallo chips are becoming available on Pine64 products (Ox64, Star64, Pinecil) [2]. [1] https://www.cnx-software.com/2022/12/29/boufallo-lab-bl616-bl618-risc-v-mcu-wifi-6-bluetooth-5-2-zigbee/ https://www.cnx-software.com/2022/12/29/boufallo-lab-bl616-b... [2] https://www.pine64.org/2022/11/15/november-update-tuned-in/ https://www.pine64.org/2022/11/15/november-update-tuned-in/

solarkraft 4y ago
Maybe, but Espressif already has their own RISC-V chip (ESP32-C), which is perfectly compatible with their development platform (IDF), with a Thread-compatible model (ESP32-H2) coming next year. Both cheap and profiting from the big community. I'll buy an Ox64 (the ability to run Linux interested me), but Espressif isn't giving up easily. A few years ago, when Espressif was in more of a niche, it would've been an advantage to not have to use their weird Xtensa instruction set. But nowadays most toolchains have apparently added support and it's not a big problem anymore.
- petre 4y ago
  It seems to be a direct competitor to the ESP32-C6 which also has WiFi 6, BLE and 802.15.4. It will only be supported in v5.1 of the IDF, so not quite there yet. https://www.espressif.com/en/products/socs https://www.espressif.com/en/products/socs
- omniscient_oce 4y ago
  The Linux support on the Ox64 is supposedly pretty poor so far.
numpad0 4y ago
It’s not the matter of CPU arch, raw performance or even power consumption. “640KB of RAM” is all you ever need in a great range of use cases that isn't currently well explored, and ESP8266/ESP32 serves that market very well with Arduino IDE integration and affordable devkits. e: added absolutely necessary positivity to languages, sorry!

antihero 4y ago

Yet again the most frictionless solution wins out. Who’d have thought? If only there were examples of this being the case…

Saris 4y ago

Also easy support by Arduino probably helps a lot of people get going, a lot of MCUs can be hard to get started with for people new to embedded programming.

PragmaticPulp 4y ago

Price and availability had a lot to do with it. When you’re trying to squeeze every dollar out of a BOM, the cheapest chip that gets the job done is going to win. The TI and STM parts were more expensive and less available, so they did not win. The landscape is slowly evolving, though. Espressif is getting a reputation as the Raspberry Pi of IoT MCUs: Easy to get started and everyone knows about it, but too many people are trying to use it in places where it’s not really the right tool for the job. A few years ago I’d hear “can’t you just use a Raspberry Pi…” from people who knew just enough to be dangerous. Now it’s “can’t you just use an ESP32…”

fest 4y ago
Well, since ESP32 is available as chip, you can design a product which is just as robust, safe, resistant to ambient temperature effects, manufacturable at scale as you could with any other TI/ST alternative. With Raspberry Pi, up until the introduction of compute module you would still have been limited to whatever board-level properties Raspberry Pi foundation decided to go (limited temperature range, flakey USB sockets that don't tolerate high vibration, requiring hand assembly, difficulties sourcing reliable SD cards, default OS settings wearing out the SD card, difficulties sourcing in large quantities etc)- in addition to the same judgement on the side of person implementing the design.

ilyt 4y ago

It's not just devkits being cheap (there have been plenty of knockoff cheap ST boards) its * integrated WiFi/BT with no/near zero extra engineering needed * generous amount of RAM/Flash so you can afford to be sloppy * SDK making it fast to get to the "the wifi is working and I can get on with my development" * momentum from ESP8266 that already (due to same "super cheap with wifi") had a chunk of market. Even now in middle of chipaggedon you can get WIFI/BT breakout board for like $3-5. That's not "just" "cheap enough for hobbyist breadboard", that's cheap enough to get the whole product built around. I think partly due to how cheap WiFi/BT has become the likes of Zigbee didn't got as popular as they probably should, between licensing costs it was just cheaper for IoT companies to not touch it, even if it would make more sense in places.

psychphysic 4y ago
Also Arduino IDE programmable fairly early on. Before boards manager stuff iirc. It went from hackaday being lol you can use this WiFi module like a MCU. To why would you ever do anything else?
phpisthebest 4y ago
in IoT wifi became commerically successful over zigbee for 2 reasons, the cost was not one of them IMO 1. Vendors want Cloud control over the product, they want it to phone home. Zigbee is built for Local Control 2. Consumers prefer "hub free" products that just "work", They are willing to give up privacy, security and possible performance issues for that convenience. They do not think or care about what will happen when their shitty comcast service breaks for the 100th time this year, or if the IoT vendor is hacked, they want to pull out of the box, and have an app connect it in 2 seconds via a QR Code so they can blink the light quickly and not have a fuss about with a hub. WiFi is better than Zigbee at both of these things. Zigbee is beter for home automation where you want Local Control, and security. Local control and security has been losing that battle though the tide seems to be turning lately (I hope )
- tinco 4y ago
  I don't see the advantage of Zigbee for local control. Implementing local control over wifi is just as easy and can even work without a hub. I'm designing a custom automation system for the ventilation in my house and I failed to discover any reason to use Zigbee.

phpisthebest 4y ago

I wonder why Hardware vendors like TI and STMicro did not learn the lesson from Software Vendors like Microsoft, Adobe, and to a lessor degree Google. Who have long offered their software free or heavily discounted for students because then they would demand that software when they entered the workforce and businesses would pay out the nose for it.

mrWiz 4y ago
TI was extremely generous with free IC samples when I was a student, so at least some of the company learned that lesson.
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  yeah its just that as a student or hobbyist, an IC without a board is of limited use
  - mrWiz 4y ago
    As a student, I certainly wouldn't buy into a WiFI SoC platform without reasonably-priced boards, good SDK, etc. But I did find free access to their bare ICs very useful at the time.

deleted 4y ago

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Rebelgecko 4y ago

Not just price- Espressif has done a really good job making their SDK and hardware documentation available to overseas hobbyists. Even hiring an English speaking dev to work SDK features that people were asking for in English, and doing a good job communicating with/engaging with the community. They're not great if you're coming from solely-software land, but their SDK and dev experience (you can just use the Arduino IDE for a gentler learning curve, step up to FreeRTOS, esp-idf, or go more bare-metal) is still leaps and bounds ahead of competitors, like the STM32CUBE cluster fuck...using their Hal was the only time in my life where deleting whitespace in C code could break a build. If the developer experience is awful, it doesn't matter that the STM32 chips perform better per second and per watt than an ESP32.

TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
Or in my case - if you can not buy the STM32 at all, while ESP32 is in stock just fine.

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naasking 4y ago

> But the Chinese startup behind the ESPxx chips made sure that their devkits were cheap enough for hobbyists and students and through that influence they now also dominate the professional industry. The rest of the industry failing to learn from how Microsoft came to dominance by basically ignoring piracy among students and private individuals.