bluetooth-proxies VS toit

If you're already using Home Assistant, you can install ESPHome on any ESP32-based device and use it as a Bluetooth Proxy hub. I already had some smartplugs and bulbs flashed with ESPHome, so it was as simple as adding a couple more lines of code to get a few BLE Proxy hubs, with no additional hardware required for the hub.

Home Assistant and Bluetooth Proxy is probably your best bet: https://esphome.github.io/bluetooth-proxies/

where can I find the yaml configuration file? I flashed the esp32 directly with the bluetooth proxy wizard, hence I never touched the yaml file myself. Is it stored somewhere in HA?

Yep, these are the way to go. Small and with a case, so ready to put around the house.

Using just your browser you can transform these into Bluetooth proxies for Home Assistant with https://esphome.github.io/bluetooth-proxies/

I think the sequence when using the web installer from here is that it first installed a basic EXPHome WiFi connector and once done, supposed to autmomagically install the BT Proxy software but it fails. It gives you the chance to rename it to something more appropriate but then you get some other 'web' ESP device pop up?

ESPHome uses a yaml file as input from which to generate the binary firmware file for your ESP. Flashing via their github as you did means it will use one of these predefined yaml files. Because you chose generic esp, it will be using this one. As you can see it already has the api: line in there (line 21).

with framework set to esp-idf (as per https://github.com/esphome/bluetooth-proxies/blob/main/gl-s10.yaml), the device logs stop at "Starting scheduler on APP CPU"

It uses toit, a high-level language, and is thus quite easy to learn. At the same time it's an order of magnitude faster than micropython.

We have been faced with the same question and decided to open-source pretty much all of our product (https://github.com/toitlang/toit).

I also really like MicroPython! Having said that, I have been working on an alternative to it for a number of years now -- primarily to provide a more robust and performant high-level alternative to C and Rust on the ESP32-family of chips:

https://github.com/toitlang/toit

I'd love to pick your brain and fully understand your experience with MicroPython. I've been doing programming languages for a number of years now, and I find that it is incredibly useful to understand what developers appreciate (and dislike) about the available stacks.

Thank you for the mention!

I have been working on the Toit language for the ESP32 for a number of years now -- and it has been an enjoyable challenge to build an open source stack capable of supporting live reloading on a micro-controller that can run for years on batteries.

https://github.com/toitlang/toit

We use it for some of our tools, so it's possible (and works nicely). Our LSP server was initially written in Toit: https://github.com/toitlang/toit/tree/master/tools/lsp/serve...