Struggled with the ESP8266 for a long time to get it to program and execute. Decided to get his instead and what a difference. Programming is simple using arduino IDE and the simple program to connect to WiFi worked immediately. Good value and quality for the price.

This review is for the (3 pack) USB C version of the ESP32 by HiLetgo.These chips are nearly perfect, but the counterfeit/clone CP2102 chips cause issues in some cases. If you read through the reviews and look around online for people talking about the "S1LABS" chip, you'll see a lot of complaints of Wifi and power issues. Some users find the counterfeit chip is leaking 5v into other parts of the chip, while others find the Wifi doesn't work properly. It's disappointing that HiLetgo would use the knockoff S1LABS chips, since they are known to cause issues. The original chip is produced by Silicon Labs and should be stamped "SILABS", not "S1LABS".In my case, I found that the S1LABS chip seems to be causing an issue with the auto-reboot functionality necessary for the auto-upload to work properly. In specific, through repeated testing I can verify the DTS/RTS functionality is pulling the GPIO0 and EN pins low, but does not appear to hold them low long enough for the programmer. After repeated testing with different baud rates, cables, computers, drivers, and USB ports, I am able to determine the counterfeit chips _do work_, but they are finicky and in many cases the programmer fails to put the chip into boot mode long enough, requiring the user to manually hold the BOOT button long enough for the programmer to initialize the flash sequence.I am able to confirm that the Bluetooth and Wifi functionality of these chips is working as expected. I can connect to all 3 chips over Bluetooth Serial and communicate as well as reprogram them wirelessly using ArduinoOTA or ElegantOTA which bypasses the BOOT/Upload issue entirely. Some users complained their ESP32's could not utilize both Wifi and BT radios at the same time, however, in my case I can confirm all 3 of my ESP32s can connect to my web server automatically over Wifi while communicating with my PC over Bluetooth for local control.The S1LABS chip is automatically detected by Windows 10 as a "CP2102 USB to UART Bridge Controller", however, this is not enough. You will need to head to the Silicon Labs website and download the CP2012 drivers. In my case, I found that the CP210x Universal Windows Driver for Windows 10 worked the best. You can install this driver by extracting the zip archive, then, open up Device Manager and locate the CP2102 (it should be under "Other devices"), right click it, and click Update Driver. Windows does not have the correct driver available, so click "Browse", then select the folder which contains the contents of the zip archive you just extracted and click "Next". Windows will now automatically identify the chip as a "Silicon Labs CP210x USB to UART Bridge (COM #)" - note the COM port number here for later.With the device connected, you are now ready to download/install the Ardunio IDE, PlatformIO, or the ESP-IDF. I have used all 3, but in my case, I find that PlatformIO offers the best solution. In the Arduino IDE, I was able to set these up either "ESP32-WROOM-DA Module". In PlatformIO, I was able to set these up as[env:esp32dev]platform = espressif32board = esp32devframework = arduinoand according to the logs this results inPLATFORM: Espressif 32 (6.8.1) > Espressif ESP32 Dev ModuleHARDWARE: ESP32 240MHz, 320KB RAM, 4MB FlashFor me, all 3 of these IDEs are working without any issues other than the aforementioned auto-upload issue, which is resolved by using the correct cable in the correct port during the correct phase of the moon (the last part in jest). I was able to confirm through repeated testing that these chips do support the full 4MB of flash partition space and 320KB of DRAM. It's unfortunate that the WROOM modules do not support PSRAM, but for $5 I can't really complain.Finally, the pin out seems needlessly confusing, but the manufacturer did include a printed 8.5"x11" diagram showing the alleged pin out and I haven't found anything wrong with it so far. I wish the manufacturer also included the schematic which would make it easier to verify, as well as publish the pin out online, as it seems many people are confused about it. GPIO2 is connected to a Blue LED on my boards. GPIO0 is connected to BOOT, but may be used as a regular GPIO pin as long as you do not also pull EN/RST low, which cannot be done through software. The other pins seem to be as labeled.Also, to the reviewer who complained about "negative voltage".. that's what happens when you have the multimeter the wrong way around, so I suspect they simply had the polarity reversed and in fact their board was likely operating as intended. When checking for voltage, the black lead goes to the pin labeled GND/Ground, and the red lead is used to check the voltage of other pins. Negative voltage is a very real thing, but a very extreme number of things would have to go wrong for that to happen here, and a more simple explanation is reversed polarity of the multimeter/user error.This is an amazingly powerful board for the price, and I will definitely be buying more. I'm disappointed by the knock off S1LABs chip, but will gladly work around the potential issues given the price.3/5 Stars. Would be 5/5 if the seller advertised that it used a knock off CP2102. I do NOT mind buying knockoffs but that needs to be clearly advertised. Would really appreciate specs being listed in the listing since they vary among ESP32 boards, but these seem to be the reference Dev Kit configuration. ESP-32D is not a standard board variant I could find anywhere, but the D might indicate it is in fact the reference board configuration.

These were my first ESP32 dev boards. No problems is what you want for your first. These delivered.I always check if hiletgo has the item I am looking for. Having a good vendor is one less thing to worry about. Great pricing is icing on the cake.

I'm mostly writing this review to gather some information here for other folks buying this, so I'm putting this first:This board appears to be identical to the NodeMCU-32S, down to almost every detail of the schematic. You'll find googling information about that board to provide a lot more information than trying to google the model name on this listing.If you're using PlatformIO (which I've so far found to be pretty smooth overall), this is the key stuff specific to this board that you need in your platformio.ini file:platform = espressif32board = nodemcu-32s(So far, I've had everything work great also using `framework = arduino`, which is a lot easier to get off the ground with than the "espidf" framework.)One note: I have found that usually after I upload code to the board and monitor serial output, I immediately get a whole bunch of garbage output at first. Then the output returns to normal. This only seems to happen right after uploading code; if I cycle the power, the serial output looks normal immediately. The garbage is also super variable in quantity. Sometimes I get what looks like kilobytes of garbage, and other times I only get a few bytes. This happens on each of the three boards I bought, and appears to be harmless, but it did cost me half an hour of flipping around to different configurations before I realized that it doesn't seem to hurt anything.---Now my actual review:Overall, this has worked well so far. I've tested:- Building against the Arduino framework- WiFi access (connecting to an existing 2.4 network)- Running multiple threads- Running a simple HTTP serverMy biggest complaint is that hiletgo has almost no information out there about this board aside from a datasheet about the processor itself and a laser print of a pin-out diagram included with the product. As a result, there's been a lot of trial and error getting everything working, and it would have been even harder if I hadn't found random folks on the internet who had already put in a lot of the legwork.

Has newer USB-C connector and it appears to have an updated bootloader as there are more messages printed out during boot. The one thing that set this apart from other vendors is the fact that they included a pinout of the board. Although this information is pretty easy to find for this board, it sure helps to have it without having to search for it. I've bought from this vendor before and have had good luck with their products.