[HN Gopher] ESP32-S31: Dual-Core RISC-V SoC with Wi-Fi 6, Blueto...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       ESP32-S31: Dual-Core RISC-V SoC with Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.4, and
       Advanced HMI
        
       Author : topspin
       Score  : 195 points
       Date   : 2026-03-29 09:39 UTC (5 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.espressif.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.espressif.com)
        
       | bestouff wrote:
       | Is there something that match those elsewhere ?
        
         | hannesfur wrote:
         | Not across all features, but certainly in specific ones. There
         | are more advanced WiFi 6 chips, more advanced Bluetooth chips
         | and faster MCUs. But they are all separate chips or companion
         | ICs.
        
       | moepstar wrote:
       | I believe this is the first ESP to gain Ethernet capability?
       | 
       | I totally wish that a board would come with PoE...
       | 
       | Because as it is right now, powering a fleet of those with USB
       | power supplies is annoying as fsck...
        
         | 3form wrote:
         | This would be great indeed.
         | 
         | On that note, why does the PoE capability often add such a big
         | proportion of the price of various items? Is the technology
         | really costly for some reason, or is it just more there's
         | fairly low demand and people are still willing to pay?
        
           | jwr wrote:
           | PoE is not obvious to implement (take it from someone who has
           | done it with a fair share of mistakes), uses more expensive
           | components that normal ethernet, takes up more space on the
           | board, makes passing emissions certification more complex,
           | and is more prone to mistakes that ruin boards in the future,
           | causing support/warranty issues. In other words, a bag of
           | worms: not impossible to handle, but something you would
           | rather avoid if possible.
        
             | ldng wrote:
             | And what would a better alternative look like ?
        
               | timschmidt wrote:
               | I wouldn't call it "better", but the least-effort path
               | among hobbyists and low end gear is often 12v or 24v sent
               | over a pair with Gnd and a forgiving voltage regulator on
               | the other end.
        
               | jwr wrote:
               | There is none, I never said PoE is "bad": it's a very
               | good solution, it's just difficult to implement.
        
           | Etheryte wrote:
           | Whenever you combine two things into one, the complexity and
           | cost go up considerably. A regular coffee machine is pretty
           | cheap. Add high pressure so it can make espresso and it gets
           | considerably more expensive. Add milk so it can make
           | cappuccino, again more complex and expensive. The same holds
           | for electronics. Isolating power when it's alone is fairly
           | straightforward. It gets considerably more tricky and hence
           | more expensive the moment you want to place any kind of a
           | meaningful data signal in its vicinity.
        
           | solarkraft wrote:
           | I'm sure the other commenters are right, but I'm guessing
           | market segmentation may play a role here too.
        
           | easygenes wrote:
           | A full-module add-on in this power class is about $7 at 1,000
           | unit scale [0]. It would be around $3 with your own custom
           | PCB design in terms of BoM addon at scale. That's power only.
           | Add another dollar or two for 10/100 PHY.
           | 
           | The trick is as others have said in what adding it to your
           | design does in terms of complicating compliance design.
           | 
           | [0] https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/silvertel/AG97
           | 05-...
        
           | throwup238 wrote:
           | Ethernet is _already_ one of the most expensive standards
           | because you need magnetics for isolation. Adding power on top
           | of that is genuinely expensive.
        
           | Aurornis wrote:
           | PoE power supplies need to be isolated (except in rare
           | exceptions) and handle much higher voltages than common USB-C
           | or wall wart power supplies.
           | 
           | They have to use a transformer and a more complex control
           | strategy, not a simple buck regulator with an inductor. PoE
           | inputs need to tolerate voltages several times higher than
           | the highest USB-C voltages, so more expensive parts are used
           | everywhere.
        
             | cruffle_duffle wrote:
             | It sounds like the PoE spec was designed before the arrival
             | of "IoT" type things like the esp32, raspberry pi's, etc.
             | 
             | How much of the complexity is a "fundamental electrical
             | engineering problem" and how much of it is just a spec
             | written to solve a different set of problems?
        
             | namibj wrote:
             | Any Ethernet (well, any RJ45 you expect in a home/office)
             | has to have at least 1500V isolation from the RJ45 wire to
             | anything metal that can be touched or is a connector on the
             | device. A PoE-only device with no electrical connectors
             | besides the RJ45 can just use a very cheap RJ45 port with
             | integrated magnetics and PoE allowance (tiny bit bigger
             | wires and a center pin exposed, less than 50ct more than
             | the cheapest RJ45 with integrated magnetics) and a cheap
             | buck from 40~80V to e.g. 5V.
             | 
             | Oh, and a cheap bridge rectifier and some signaling
             | resistors to take care of input polarity and signal to the
             | source that we in fact want the approximately 50V that
             | could hurt a device not made for it.
        
               | shadowpho wrote:
               | > cheap buck from 40~80V to e.g. 5V.
               | 
               | That's not a cheap buck lol. Order of magnitude more
               | expensive then 12v not even mentioning capacitors that
               | can withstand 80v is $$$ and your derating goes to shit
        
         | Geof25 wrote:
         | The original ESP32 has Ethernet as well, I believe in the form
         | of RMII. Then it has been removed from the chip, never
         | specified the reason.
        
         | elcritch wrote:
         | Nah, ESP32's have had ethernet capability for a while and ESP-
         | IDF supports it well. I've been using one I built for 5+ years
         | now. Unfortunately RMII (ethernet phy) interface takes up a lot
         | of the GPIO pins. This part looks like it'll remedy that issue.
         | 
         | There's two ESP32 boards that have been around for a while with
         | PoE:
         | 
         | - https://www.tme.com/us/en-
         | us/details/esp32-poe/development-k... - https://wesp32.com/
         | 
         | I'm more hopeful for single-pair ethernet to gain momentum
         | though! Deterministic, faster than CANBUS, single pair, with
         | power delivery:
         | 
         | https://www.hackster.io/rahulkhanna/sustainable-real-time-la...
        
           | matt_trentini wrote:
           | Waiting for my ManT1S:
           | 
           | https://www.crowdsupply.com/silicognition/mant1s
        
             | baby_souffle wrote:
             | I really wish there was a camera option. You'd have made
             | wired doorbell cameras possible without a retrofit.
             | 
             | I'd buy in a heartbeat
        
           | albuic wrote:
           | SPE with multidrop and PoDL would be awesome ! They are
           | working on that and it will be everywhere.
        
             | cpgxiii wrote:
             | Multidrop SPE isn't going to outperform newer CAN versions
             | though. Somewhere in the sub-100Mb/s (e.g. 10-20Mb/s range)
             | is the practical maximum speed of a multidrop bus at useful
             | lengths, and that essentially applies equally to CAN or
             | SPE. The only way to really get faster in a "multidrop-
             | like" sense is with logically loop-like systems like
             | ethercat and Fibre Channel where each network segment is
             | point-to-point and the nodes are responsible for the
             | routing.
        
           | toast0 wrote:
           | > I'm more hopeful for single-pair ethernet to gain momentum
           | though!
           | 
           | I keep looking for a reasonably priced 10baseT to 10Base-T1L
           | bridge... everything commercial seems too expensive (for me)
           | and the two hobby designs [1] [2] I've seen are not orderable
           | :(
           | 
           | But I'm seeing more commercial options lately, so that's
           | hopeful.
           | 
           | [1] http://robruark.com/projects/10BASE-T1L/10BASE-T1L.html
           | 
           | [2] https://matthewtran.dev/2024/08/10base-t1l-converter/
        
         | amelius wrote:
         | > Because as it is right now, powering a fleet of those with
         | USB power supplies is annoying as fsck...
         | 
         | Therefore, wifi is more convenient than ethernet.
         | 
         | You don't need long cables, just a local power source.
        
           | albuic wrote:
           | > You don't need long cables, just a local power source
           | 
           | Which means batteries that have to be replaced and maintained
           | or cables... So ethernet with PoE or even better SPE (single
           | pair Ethernet) with PoDL (power over data lines which is PoE
           | for SPE) is the best from my point of view
        
             | amelius wrote:
             | I mean, if I just look at my house. There is just one
             | ethernet outlet, but many power sockets. If I want to
             | connect devices all over my house, the best way is to use
             | wifi and usb power adapters. Not ethernet.
             | 
             | Both solutions require 1 cable per device, but the first
             | solution would require only short and thin cables, and the
             | second solution would require very long cables which I
             | don't know even how to do properly without milling my
             | walls.
        
               | stinkbeetle wrote:
               | Yep. Mains electricity is ubiquitous, highly
               | interoperable, very reliable, very high power available
               | per drop, can be outdoor capable, common standards,
               | understandable by users, requiring no active components,
               | with many on-call experts available who can come to fix
               | problems or extend/alter connectivity. Mains power wall
               | plates with inbuilt USB power outlets are even available
               | at quite small cost if the look of the bigger plug and
               | wiring is not appealing.
               | 
               | PoE is much fewer of those things. Difficult to recommend
               | it these days with wifi being fast and reliable and so
               | widely used. Certainly not for average residential user.
        
               | ImPostingOnHN wrote:
               | That's half the equation. The other half is the
               | reliability and security of wifi, which is less than that
               | of ethernet for people without physical access to my wall
               | innards
        
               | cyberax wrote:
               | On the other hand, _all_ the WiFi devices that I had at
               | some point fell off the network, at least once. Including
               | doorbells and cameras. While PoE devices just work.
               | 
               | Another point is that mains power in my area can go down
               | periodically. My PoE switch is powered by a Li-Ion UPS
               | and can provide power for about a day.
        
             | PunchyHamster wrote:
             | Well, yes, but then you need to be "in range" of PoE switch
             | and drag the ethernet cable from it vs the nearby socket.
             | Still, nice to have options
        
           | whynotmaybe wrote:
           | Esp32 's wifi is only 2.4ghz though.
        
         | exe34 wrote:
         | Can't you run a 5V supply from where your router is all the way
         | to every god damn device in your house, and then pretend the
         | wifi is also going through it? If you just want it to be
         | inconvenient, there's no reason to let a lack of PoE stop you!
        
         | anigbrowl wrote:
         | M5stack has PoE offerings
        
       | logicallee wrote:
       | Roughly how much do you think this costs?
        
         | ricardobeat wrote:
         | Given their history, I would guess <$6 a piece for a dev board,
         | <$2 for the chip at scale.
        
       | Lwrless wrote:
       | I'm puzzled by Espressif's naming here. We had the ESP32-S3, so
       | "S31" sounds like "S3, variant 1," but this part doesn't really
       | look like a simple S3 variant. And then there's an ESP32-E22, but
       | no E21 or even a plain E2 anywhere.
       | 
       | Edit: found an article explaining some of their naming logic, and
       | said that the SoC naming will get its follow-up article, but
       | sadly it never happened.
       | https://developer.espressif.com/blog/2025/03/espressif-part-...
        
         | maartin0 wrote:
         | It reminds me a bit of the new STM32s (STM32MP2) which are
         | actually 64 bit, but they kept the name STM32 because everyone
         | knows it
        
           | beng-nl wrote:
           | Didn't Intel also try to brand the 64bit x86 extensions as
           | ia-32e initially? Seemed like wasting an opportunity to me.
           | 
           | (Disclaimer: I work at Intel but this was way before my
           | tenure.)
        
             | p_l wrote:
             | It was because IA-64 was a completely different unrelated
             | architecture that until AMD succeeded with K8 was "the
             | plan" for both 64bit intel roadmap _and_ the roadmap to
             | kill off compatible vendors (AMD, VIA)
        
         | madduci wrote:
         | I stopped following the producer logic when Intel went from
         | Pentium 4 to Pentium D
        
       | wosined wrote:
       | The ESP32 boards I own have bad support and are a bit of a hit
       | and miss. (arduino nano esp32) Did this get better? Or is the
       | support still messy?
        
         | ricardobeat wrote:
         | Arduino nano are made by arduino using Espressif chips, and
         | Arduino IDE support is indeed hit and miss.
         | 
         | ESP-IDF, the official C SDK, is a bit more work, and there is
         | drama around platform-io, but it's significantly more stable.
        
           | whynotmaybe wrote:
           | > there is drama around platform-io
           | 
           | What do you mean ?
        
             | ricardobeat wrote:
             | Boards like the ESP32-C6, almost 5 years old, are not
             | supported in PlatformIO with Arduino libraries, because
             | they refuse to update the Arduino core in some kind of
             | stand-off with Espressif. This has been going on for years.
             | There is a fork [1] that offers support but none of it
             | makes back upstream.
             | 
             | As a hobbyist I've given up on PIO and moved to a barebones
             | arduino-cli setup instead. Much lighter and less painful.
             | 
             | [1] https://github.com/pioarduino/platform-espressif32
        
         | mianos wrote:
         | That native sdk and the vscode plugin are very professional.
         | There is a bit of a learning curve to get into it, but once you
         | do, it's very functional and the developers are super
         | supportive. They have fixed bugs for me in days.
        
         | MallocVoidstar wrote:
         | Don't use the Arduino framework, use ESP-IDF or Rust.
        
           | PunchyHamster wrote:
           | how's Rust on the xtensa cores ?
        
             | 0x457 wrote:
             | Still requires using rust compiled against their llm fork.
             | 'espup' makes it easy if you're okay with using it.
             | 
             | Other than that it works pretty well. This is if you run
             | ESP-IDF, with bare-metal rust it's either best thing ever
             | or meh. Rust community seems to use stm32 and picos more.
        
           | usagisushi wrote:
           | For those using PlatformIO, the folks at pioarduino[0] are
           | doing a great job keeping up with Arduino Core 3.x support.
           | ```         # platformio.ini         platform =
           | https://github.com/pioarduino/platform-
           | espressif32.git#55.03.37         framework = arduino
           | ```
           | 
           | [0]: https://github.com/pioarduino/platform-espressif32
        
         | cdcarter wrote:
         | What do you mean by that? bad support for what?
        
       | Rochus wrote:
       | They claim that the chip has an "MMU". But unfortunately this
       | doesn't seem to be a true RISC-V MMU (according to the Sv32
       | specification) integrated into the CPU core itself, but just a
       | peripheral designed for memory mapped SPI flash and PSRAM. So as
       | far as I understand there is no true process isolation with page
       | faults and dynamic paging.
        
         | volemo wrote:
         | That's a shame, it'd be a cool and, afaik, unique feature for
         | this niche.
        
           | Rochus wrote:
           | Maybe Espressif will notice that there are no RV32 chips with
           | MMU so far (at least to my knowledge); we only have 32 bit
           | MCUs or then only 64 bits for the CPUs. Something like
           | Cortex-A7 is missing.
        
             | GeorgeHahn wrote:
             | There's one incoming, https://baochip.github.io/baochip-1x/
             | It would be great to see more.
        
             | bschwindHN wrote:
             | The upcoming Baochip is an RV32 chip with an MMU, I
             | believe.
             | 
             | https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/2026/baochip-1x-a-
             | mostly-...
             | 
             | Edit - Oops GeorgeHahn beat me to it
        
           | IshKebab wrote:
           | Does anyone know what CPU this uses? Is it their own first
           | party design?
        
       | ricardobeat wrote:
       | I hope this one has multiple radios so you can actually use
       | BT/Wifi/Thread simultaneously.
        
       | volemo wrote:
       | How do Espressif's RISC-V cores compare to existing ARM or RISC-V
       | options in terms of power efficiency (computational power /
       | electrical power)?
        
         | xondono wrote:
         | Don't know the specifics of the Espressif RISC-V cores, but in
         | general they can't really compete on those aspects with ARM.
         | 
         | ARM is a much more mature platform, and the licensing scheme
         | helps somewhat to keep really good physical implementations of
         | the cores, since some advances get "distributed" through ARM
         | itself.
         | 
         | Compute capabilities and power efficiency are very tied to
         | physical implementations, which for the best part is happening
         | behind closed doors.
        
         | 6SixTy wrote:
         | Without being hands on, it's difficult to make a direct
         | comparison. There's 2 processors according to CNX [0], and the
         | HP core's instruction set might roughly be comparable to M55.
         | 
         | [0] https://www.cnx-software.com/2026/03/24/esp32-s31-dual-
         | core-...
        
       | urba_ wrote:
       | I don't trust Espressif's releases, I am still waiting for
       | ESP32-P4 to hit distributors. It is now more than 2 years and 3rd
       | chip revision
        
         | cbdevidal wrote:
         | Can also be ordered on JLCPCB in a custom PCB:
         | https://www.lcsc.com/product-detail/C22387510.html?s_z=n_ESP...
        
         | MallocVoidstar wrote:
         | I assume their chips don't really exist until they're actually
         | supported by ESP-IDF. The ESP32-C5 was announced in June 2022,
         | received initial support in -IDF in August 2025, and more
         | complete support in December. It seems to have only recently
         | started getting third party dev boards.
        
       | amelius wrote:
       | Does it run Linux?
        
         | la_oveja wrote:
         | why would you do that? (unless for the fun of it)
        
           | amelius wrote:
           | Just to get an idea of its capabilities.
        
           | system2 wrote:
           | Imagine installing Claude Code in it with full root access.
           | Just by asking a few things, you can have a semi-broken ESP32
           | doing stuff.
        
         | bavell wrote:
         | No, missing a MMU.
        
           | mrighele wrote:
           | There is mClinux [1] although it is not clear to me how much
           | alive is the project
           | 
           | I wish I could run DiscoBSD/RetroBSD [2] on an ESP32, I like
           | the idea of running on a MCU something that was originally
           | meant for a PDP/11 (2.11 BSD)
           | 
           | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CE%9CClinux
           | 
           | [2] https://github.com/chettrick/discobsd
        
           | madushan1000 wrote:
           | you can run linux on riscv without an MMU. There is mainline
           | support for Kendryte K210 chip, so it should be possible port
           | to this chip provided you have enough PSRAM.
        
       | MrBuddyCasino wrote:
       | > high-speed 250 MHz 8-bit DDR PSRAM with concurrent flash and
       | PSRAM access
       | 
       | This is perhaps lost in the noise but IMO a large deal. PSRAM
       | starting to get serious bandwidth.
        
         | 1e1a wrote:
         | For reference, the 4-bit PSRAM interface on the ESP32-S3
         | normally runs at 80 MHz (maximum 120 MHz) and shares bandwidth
         | with the external flash.
         | 
         | I wonder if it will be possible to (ab)use the faster PSRAM
         | interface on the ESP32-S31 as a general purpose 8-bit parallel
         | interface, eg. for ADCs...
        
       | anymouse123456 wrote:
       | Since the Snowden leaks in 2013, it just doesn't make sense that
       | *any* foreign customers would put US technology inside their
       | firewall. But they do.
       | 
       | It shocks me even more that any Western customer would do the
       | same with network-connected Chinese chips. But we do.
       | 
       | The Espressif chips are truly incredible value, but what are we
       | doing here?
       | 
       | Is there any doubt that these don't represent a major attack
       | surface if a conflict were to heat up?
       | 
       | If you had network-connected chips of your own design inside
       | every household of your adversary, what could you do with that?
        
         | khalic wrote:
         | It's not like creating a chip gives you unfettered access to
         | it. You _can_ add 0-day flaws and backdoors, but these can be
         | discovered, leaked, etc. Has there been any case of such a
         | backdoor built in consumer chips like theses? I'm not talking
         | about CIA ops like snowden described, that's supply chain
         | interception. I mean, has anybody ever found such a backdoor?
        
           | xondono wrote:
           | Well, that depends on what you count as a backdoor, but
           | Espressif has had some questionable flaws:
           | 
           | - Early (ESP8622) MCUs had weak security, implementation
           | flaws, and a host of issues that meant an attacker could
           | hijack and maintain control of devices via OTA updates.
           | 
           | - Their chosen way to implement these systems makes them more
           | vulnerable. They explicitly reduce hardware footprint by
           | moving functionality from hardware to software.
           | 
           | - More recently there was some controversy about hidden
           | commands in the BT chain, which were claimed to be debug
           | functionality. Even if you take them at their word, that
           | speaks volumes about their practices and procedures.
           | 
           | That's the main problem with these kinds of backdoors, you
           | can never really prove they exist because there's reasonable
           | alternative explanations since bugs do happen.
           | 
           | What I can tell you is that every single company I've worked
           | which took security seriously (medical implants, critical
           | safety industry) not only banned their use on our designs,
           | they banned the presence of ESP32 based devices on our
           | networks.
        
             | khalic wrote:
             | You can hide malicious intent, so the repeated negligence
             | patterns you're pointing out make a better signal. Smart.
             | Thx for the perspective
        
             | albuic wrote:
             | Obviously... They are not made for safety critical systems.
             | It's for hobbyists.
        
               | elevation wrote:
               | Except if you penetrate the market with modules that cost
               | 5% of similar US made solutions, you start to win
               | mindshare. At least some of those hobbyists start making
               | a product, and sometimes the determination of whether a
               | product is "safety critical" isn't agreed upon until
               | after it's failed catastrophically.
        
       | Mashimo wrote:
       | Oh neat. Zigbee support.
       | 
       | I wonder if I at some point can create low power devices with
       | EspHome for home assistant. I assume this should use less power
       | than connecting to wifi?
        
         | zrail wrote:
         | You already can with nRF52 boards. Presumably they'll add ESP32
         | support soon too.
         | 
         | https://esphome.io/components/zigbee/
        
         | cataphract wrote:
         | The C6 and the H2 already support ZigBee. Their SDK has a thin
         | layer on top of zboss.
        
       | kunver wrote:
       | Soon espressif will add TPU to their chips.
        
         | 0x457 wrote:
         | Hopefully it will be just added to
         | https://github.com/espressif/esp-nn on software side.
        
       | burnt-resistor wrote:
       | Interesting.
       | 
       | Although, I'd like to seem some non-paid blogger head-to-head
       | reviews benchmarking instruction cycle efficiency per power of
       | comparable Arm vs. ESP32 Xtensa LX6* and RISC-V parts.
       | 
       | * Metric crap tons of WROOM parts are still available and ancient
       | ESP8266 probably too.
        
       | ivanjermakov wrote:
       | HN title entropy record?
        
         | phendrenad2 wrote:
         | Only a few characters away from my password!
        
       | bdavbdav wrote:
       | Love ESP boards, and with Raspberry pi pricing though the roof,
       | I'm hoping more will discover the love of getting the job done on
       | a 10mm2 package.
       | 
       | I suspect a lot of the things people are using RPi for are better
       | served by things like this (and virtualisation for the heavier
       | end)
        
       | nirav72 wrote:
       | Argh...Wifi 6 , but 2.4ghz.
        
         | hajile wrote:
         | Adding 2 frequency ranges is more expensive. If you're going to
         | choose just one, you should choose the one with the greatest
         | backward compatibility.
        
           | 0x457 wrote:
           | Realistically 2.4Ghz is far from "greatest backward
           | compatibility" since there is a real benefit of running 5Ghz
           | and 6Ghz only networks.
           | 
           | 2.4Ghz makes sense because this tiny device does not need
           | high speeds Wi-Fi connection, and deployment scenarios
           | benefit from 2.4 GHz penetration more.
        
         | hannesfur wrote:
         | There is an ESP-C5
         | (https://www.espressif.com/en/products/socs/esp32-c5) that
         | supports 2.4 and 5 GHz dual-band WiFi. And unlike the ESP32-S31
         | you can buy it today.
        
       | vlan0 wrote:
       | I don't understand what possesses these folks to continue making
       | 2.4ghz devices. I understand there are use cases for low
       | bandwidth, high range. But surely we've passed the point where
       | that is more desirable to most than lower latency and high
       | throughput, right?
        
         | joshryandavis wrote:
         | > I understand there are use cases for low bandwidth, high
         | range.
         | 
         | Use cases like IoT? The very thing this is for?
        
           | vlan0 wrote:
           | Is what you described a truth for all IoT devices? If I have
           | los of my AP, why do I need 2.4Ghz? Even so, what SNR do you
           | truly need for this low bandwidth application? Where is the
           | engineering here?
           | 
           | I have a unique position of having a data set over 8000 APs
           | with 40k unique devices. If you design properly, there is no
           | need for 2.4 ever. 2.4Ghz congestion (with nearly no actual
           | 802.11 traffic) is very high. To the point where the IoT
           | folks are struggling.
        
         | Havoc wrote:
         | My 2.4ghz is basically all IOT these days. Things that matter
         | are on 5 or 6 ghz. Busy moving the entire thing to be entirely
         | firewalled off given how clean the separation is
        
           | vlan0 wrote:
           | >My 2.4ghz is basically all IOT these days.
           | 
           | Yup. And it's exactly why some of my IoT admins are
           | struggling. There is only so much spectrum to go around.
        
             | Havoc wrote:
             | Don't think you're ever going to reclaim that spectrum
             | successfully. There must be billions of devices on it.
             | Pretty much any other ghz number is a better bet
        
         | mschuster91 wrote:
         | 2.4 GHz has the advantage of it passing through obstacles
         | easier. The higher the frequency the more easily it gets
         | blocked.
        
           | vlan0 wrote:
           | Yes. And 2.4 lives and dies by that sword. What downsides
           | might there be in areas where dozens of APs hear each other
           | and 100s of clients hear each other?
        
         | leptons wrote:
         | It's an IoT device, not a laptop. It does not really need 5ghz
         | to fulfill its purpose as an embedded CPU, and adding 5ghz
         | likely would require making some room for it by removing other
         | functionality.
        
           | vlan0 wrote:
           | Yes and in some uses cases it works against you. 2.4 is
           | incredibly crowded without adding 802.11 to the mix. My IoT
           | admins would have less complaints if they could take
           | advantage of my small cell 5Ghz spectrum. This isn't 2005
           | with widely deployed asymmetrical wireless networks.
        
             | everforward wrote:
             | Can't you just underpower the antenna on a 2.4 radio if you
             | need networks that don't bleed into each other as badly?
             | Unless it's an issue because of the tiny antennas that
             | usually come on microcontrollers.
        
       | madushan1000 wrote:
       | Interesting that they made a new chip with BLE+BR/EDR again. all
       | the chips after the original ESP32 were BLE only. Hope this chip
       | has good low power options so we can use it in Bluetooth audio
       | workloads.
        
         | zwirbl wrote:
         | It supports LE Audio, might help getting that tech some
         | traction
        
       | peterus wrote:
       | It would be good if this chip had good idle current comparable to
       | other MCUs. I have used the ESP32S3 and it's idle current with
       | the radio enabled, but not transmitting, is quite terrible.
       | 
       | My application needed both can bus and Bluetooth (though no wifi)
       | so the S3 was one of the only options available. I'm sure the
       | high current draw is because the wifi and ble share the same
       | radio?
        
         | Scene_Cast2 wrote:
         | I had the same theory, but IIRC the H2 isn't much better with
         | radio on.
        
       | jxm262 wrote:
       | Perfect timing. I just started planning to build a DIY smartwatch
       | and was looking into the S3. Having native zigbee support could
       | be nice.
        
       | sgraz wrote:
       | Pardon for off topic. The designer in me hates that they used AI
       | for every single asset in this release post, looks so amateurish.
        
       | elevation wrote:
       | Are there any US vendors with wifi/BLE-integrated MCUs -- a
       | single package that does it all?
        
         | hannesfur wrote:
         | It has become limited. Some have WiFi, some have Bluetooth but
         | rarely both. There is the SiWx917M
         | (https://www.silabs.com/wireless/wi-fi/siwx917-wireless-socs)
         | by SiliconLabs though.
         | 
         | If we include western companies you get the NXP RW612
         | (https://www.nxp.com/products/wireless-connectivity/wi-fi-
         | plu...) which is dutch.
        
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