What Is the ESP32?
A quick tour of the ESP32 family, what makes it different from a plain Arduino, and which board to buy for these lessons.
The ESP32 is a small microcontroller module built around a dual-core processor, with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth radios built directly onto the chip. Where a classic Arduino Uno gives you digital and analog pins and nothing else, the ESP32 adds networking, more memory, more processing headroom, and a faster clock — for roughly the same price as a basic Arduino board.
"ESP32" is really a family name. You'll come across bare modules meant to be soldered onto a custom board, and full development boards with a USB port, a voltage regulator, and header pins already broken out — the kind used throughout this section.
What makes it different from an Arduino
- Two processor cores running at up to 240 MHz, versus the Uno's single 16 MHz core.
- Built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, so no extra shield or module is needed to get a project online.
- Far more RAM and flash, enough to hold a small web server and a few libraries at once.
- 3.3 V logic throughout — not 5 V like the Uno, which matters when wiring up older sensors.
Picking a board for this course
Any "ESP32 DevKit" or "ESP32-WROOM-32 dev board" with a USB port will work for every lesson here. Boards differ slightly in which pins are exposed and how many, so keep your board's datasheet or silkscreen nearby — the pin numbers used in these lessons are the common ones, but always double-check against your own board before wiring.