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I started working with Microcontrollers when 80C51s were still somewhat modern, and I remember how frustrating the toolchain and the general experience was. Wh
by dotdi 2y ago
I started working with Microcontrollers when 80C51s were still somewhat modern, and I remember how frustrating the toolchain and the general experience was.
When AVR came out with their ATmegas, it was a revelation. Not having to use shitty proprietary programmers and windows-only software was amazing. We could finally use Linux. PIC was one of the main competitors in our circles, but it was losing the foothold quickly, because the AVR tooling was just hands-down better.
Also, documentation was easier to read and interpret, especially compared to PIC, which is still giving me slight PTSD when I try to recall how hard it was to get non-mainstream features to work. Whenever I had to deep-dive PIC documentation I stumbled over weird behaviour or outright hardware bugs that, in some cases, could not even be worked around.
I don't actively work with microcontrollers nowadays, but I am excited to hear that AVR is still making an effort to have an objectively good product. The market is tough nowadays, with ESP32s and ESP8266s being so cheap and widespread, but I hope AVR keeps it up.
- violet13 2y agoVery few hobby designs that use more capable chips actually need more capable chips, and the added complexity - hardware and software - often bites hard. That said, wifi is a major selling point, and you need a beefy 32-bit computer to run the protocol. This is the brilliance of ESP32: you can actually use it just as a wifi dongle for another microcontroller, but since it needs so much computing power, might as well give you some RAM and CPU to do your thing directly on the wifi chipset...
- t0mas88 2y agoThe ESP32 is very overpowered for random home projects. But the cost is low, and they can be used with the Arduino ecosystem which is very beginner friendly. Often the ESP32 is far cheaper than whatever sensor you're making it monitor. WiFi isn't the perfect technology to upload sensor data in the home, but anything proper Zigbee is more expensive and more complex to use. So the ESP32 ends up in all kinds of projects.
- gothroach 2y agoI haven't tried the ESP32-H2 or ESP32-C6 yet, but they have 802.15.4 radios so they can be used with Zigbee or Threads (plus WiFi 6 on the C6). I definitely am eager to play around with one, most of my current projects have been on the ESP32-C3.
- sitkack 2y agoThe ESP32 is not overpowered! Either for the cost or the power consumed. This idea that if an MCU is too easy to program for or has "resource left over" after completing the task that it is ill suited for the task has to go. ESP32-H2 and ESP32-C6 both do Zigbee.