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Comment by no_time | Hacker News Reader

What's the industry's consensus on Espressif modules?

As a layman they look like an insane deal. With western manufacturers $3.5 doesn't even get you a firm handshake whereas Espressif gives you a fully intergrated module with everything already on board.

https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/espressif-systems...

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$3.5 is pretty expensive when you can get microcontroller chips for $0.5 or less in bulk. In general, "the industry" makes their own boards and modules, and prefers cutting off any excess cost and features in favor of getting cheaper microcontrollers to optimally integrate into a design. That is, unless said designs actually need wifi, in which case Espressif is actually a consideration, but otherwise STMicroelectronics or Nordic Semiconductors chips tend to be more cost-effective, and the latter has significant leniency on board design as it allows remapping nearly all pins.

I look at Nordic the same way, but for battery-powered BLE etc vice WiFi; If this is your requirement, Noric is great. If not, it's probably not the ideal fit.

STM is more about versatile lineup; there are many variants with different footprints, redundant peripherals, price points etc. I think the $0.5 is only if you're a major manufacturer buying G0s or they're predecessors.

I have played in the past with the ESP8266 and the (original) ESP32, but I would be too concerned about backdoors to use them for anything serious. I'd prefer something like Nordic nRF.

This is exactly what I had in mind. With integrated WiFi and crypto it couldn't get any juicier as a backdoor target...

Espressif also has a bookstore direct outlet. The “module” prices look spendy but are sold in strips of 10. Here is ESP32-C3 at 1.90/module

https://www.amazon.com/Espressif-ESP32-C3-WROOM-02-N4-Module...

Given that Espressif was one of the few companies not to fail during the supply chain crunch I wouldn't hesitate to use them. Unlike the Raspberry PI Foundation.

This is mostly due to Espressif modules being less demanded.

The pico (rp2040) never really had issues and it's more of a direct competitor to the esp32 than a standard pi.

True, but at this point their reputation is kind of burned for me. I'm not confident that if they have challenges come up with rp2040 production that they will be able to compensate quickly.

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