ESP-32 Getting Started

This is a quick guide to getting set up and started with the ESP-32 microcontroller. There are many guides out there but the usual problem is finding one with the right level for you. I'm an electronic engineer who can develop software so this is a guide for someone like me who just wants to see it working before committing to a bigger project.

I bought an ESP-32 dev board and an ESP-32 Cam board. Each only cost a few dollars and are versatile pieces of hardware to do a number of tasks with.

For interest, here is the output on dmesg when plugging my ESP-32 dev board into the USB port:

usb 1-4: Product: CP2102 USB to UART Bridge Controller
usb 1-4: Manufacturer: Silicon Labs
...
cp210x 1-4:1.0: cp210x converter detected
usb 1-4: cp210x converter now attached to ttyUSB0

Here is the output of lsusb:

Bus 001 Device 004: ID 10c4:ea60 Silicon Labs CP210x UART Bridge

If you've followed my guide to getting started with the ESP-01S then you have already installed the Arduino IDE.

Now let's run some test code.

  1. Run the Arduino IDE.
  2. Add the ESP-32 to the "Additional Board Manager URLs" found in Preferences by adding a comma after the ESP8266 URL if you are also using ESP8266 and then pasting: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/espressif/arduino-esp32/gh-pages/package_esp32_index.json.
  3. Go to Tools/Board/Boards Manager; search for and install the esp32 module by Espressif Systems.
  4. Select the closest ESP-32 board to the one you have via the Tools/Board menu. For ESP-32 it seems that many people struggle to identify the board they have so it may take some experimentation to find the best one.
  5. Go to File/Examples menu and scroll down until you find the WiFi/WiFiScan sketch.
  6. Connect the board via a USB cable and make sure it is selected on the correct serial port.
  7. Click the right arrow to compile and upload the sketch.
  8. Wait for the sketch to compile and upload.
  9. The ESP should reset and start scanning for WiFi networks.

Open the serial monitor to check the output. Make sure to select the correct data rate or the text will be unreadable.

ESP-32 WiFi scan

ESP-32 WiFi Scan

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