odroid-go-multi-firmware VS arduino-esp32

Link to the code I meant: https://github.com/ducalex/odroid-go-multi-firmware/blob/master/main/main.c

Arduino Core for ESP32. GitHub Repository. Retrieved from https://github.com/espressif/arduino-esp32

bootloader

That's not ESP-IDF, that's the Arduino wrapper around ESP-IDF.

Setting the baud rate does actually do something (just follow the baudRate parameter here: https://github.com/espressif/arduino-esp32/blob/master/cores...), it just doesn't affect the output speed of the USB serial output.

If you specify non-default pins for the serial output (i.e. you're opening a second serial connection to talk to another piece of hardware) the begin() method does influence the data rate.

> If your network hardware allows it, you should pin the device to the closest one.

In Wi-Fi it's always the client's choice on where to connect to at the end of the day, any hacks the APs try to do to steer clients are "suggestions" at best and "signal ruiners for everyone" at worst. You may be better off specifying which specific AP you want to connect to by specifying the BSSID argument in the WiFi.begin() call client side https://github.com/espressif/arduino-esp32/blob/master/libra...

There is one library called Homespan, but this is intended for programming ESP32 in the Arduino environment. This is much easier and beginner friendly, but I wanted something more advanced and challenging :). As I said in the beginning, I wanted to get more familiar with the ESP32 environment and the arduino-esp32 project offers a lot of abstractions. That’s why I opted for the ESP-IDF framework instead.

The steps I worked out to add Android to ESP-IDF is based on the above mentioned [official] Arduino as an ESP-IDF component:

I've been working on getting a calendar on an Inkplate 10. Great hardware but my god is the Arduino software awful. It doesn't even have incremental builds! A one line change to my code means it completely recompiles a ton of libraries including mbedtls! The edit-compile-run cycle is like 3 minutes. Awful.

Arduino code and APIs are also really badly designed, and badly documented. The Inkplate uses an Xtensa ESP32 so the network code uses this crap:

https://github.com/espressif/arduino-esp32/blob/2.0.17/libra...

Does `int read();` block? Zero comments so you'll have to read the code, which by the way is very hard to find because of course intellisense doesn't work in the gimped VSCode that Arduino is calling their IDE (it's better than the old one at least, though it wouldn't take much).

The really frustrating thing is that Arduino has basically zero competition. I was hopeful for Mbed Studio for a while but they spent so long fucking it up with web based compilers, terrible home-brewed build systems (yotta? I think they went through several bad attempts), before finally doing the right thing (Mbed Studio) that I think everyone had given up waiting and they killed the whole project. Also it's obviously ARM only.

And I can't see that really changing. I think there's PlatformIO but I think that just wraps the Arduino code in less awfulness. As long as hardware manufacturers are writing their drivers and examples for Arduino it's going to be hard for anyone else to compete.

Ok I think my one-line change has finished compiling now...

/rant

If you ever have to do that again it might be worth considering some hardware assistance. An ESP32 S2 or S3, from what I've read, can act as a USB HID and emulate a keyboard from the computer's point of view. The necessary code is included in the ESP32 libraries for Arduino, with examples [1], so for software all you'd need is the Arduino IDE or command line tools, which run fine on Linux.

With that it would be easy to build a temporary "type my secret key" dongle.

An ESP32 S2 or S3 dev kit board from a reputable source along with the other necessary hardware would probably be under $20.

There are also some models of Arduino that have the necessary USB support such as the Arduino Leonardo [2], but the Leonardo is more than an EPS32 at the non-sketchy sellers I've seen.

Even if you've never played around with microcontrollers this would be a beginner level project.

[1] https://github.com/espressif/arduino-esp32/tree/master/libra...

[2] https://docs.arduino.cc/hardware/leonardo/

ESP32: Necessary in order to establish a Wi-Fi connection with the ESP32 CAM.

You could just buy ready-made ESP32 boards with an OV2640 camera built-in, then customize the example sketch from https://github.com/espressif/arduino-esp32/tree/master/libraries/ESP32/examples/Camera/CameraWebServer to your liking.