Comparing the Features of the ESP-32 Variants
Recently, an Senior Design Project team asked me about the different capabilities of ESP-32 micro controller board versions, and which board would be best suited for their AI powered drone camera project. With a little bit of digging, I was able to find this sheet.
A comparison matrix of ESP-32’s.
Link: https://products.espressif.com/static/Espressif%20SoC%20Product%20Portfolio.pdf
An Assortment of ESP-32 Micro Controller Boards
One of the main things I noted whilst going through this sheet, is that both the original ESP-32, and the ESP-32 S2 do not support BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy), which is becoming increasingly popular in hobbyist projects, due to it’s lower power consumption, and better range. This is important to note, as many libraries will exclusively support BLE, which will not work on a ESP-32 S2, or the original.
The ESP-32 C3/C6 is an interesting board, as it’s designed for low power consumption. The C6 is a little bit more feature rich, with integrated Zigbee support, and a more up to standard WIFI chip, which gives it WIFI 6 capabilities, while the C3 board only does WIFI 4.
What’s also interesting, and not properly showcased on this page is the ESP-32’s extended instruction set, which has math operators specifically for AI workloads. This makes it ideal for small scale low level AI projects, and digital signal processing.
If I were to start a project now, I’d obviously use whatever ESP-32 I had on hand. However, I think that going for a esp-32 original/S2 for a Bluetooth less project, to minimize power usage, or a C3/C6 for a project that uses Bluetooth low energy, but still needs low power consumption, and finally an S3, in case I need extra compute, or plan on taking advantage of the AI/Digital Signal Processing specific instruction set makes sense. For the Senior Design Project Team, I ended up recommending them the ESP-32 S3, which would handle their use case perfectly.
