When HN users recommended it
1 HN user recommended this in 2024, in one comment.
20072026
Each tall tick is one HN user's first recommendation. A short tick is the same user again. Click a tick to jump to the comment.
1 HN user recommended this in 2024, in one comment.
Each tall tick is one HN user's first recommendation. A short tick is the same user again. Click a tick to jump to the comment.
I am a VERY low-effort hardware person (even soldering is um, not my favorite) but for years my approach has been:
1) Go to Amazon and buy a three pack of ESP32 dev boards with headers[0]. They're always some random seller, etc but I've probably had one DoA/failure after buying dozens from random sellers over the years.
2) Get a dupont wires variety pack[1].
3) Optionally (but good to have) get some breadboards [2].
4) Familiarize yourself with various supported temperature/motion/humidity/relays/etc. Esphome has a supported list[3].
5) Search for the chip name, etc on Amazon. Example[4].
6) Familiarize yourself with the ESP32 dev board pins, GPIO, etc. Most sellers will include a picture that looks something like this[5] and most of them are pretty "standard" these days.
7) Wire stuff up, configure with esphome.
8) Once you have things up and running, shove everything in an old box (iPhone boxes are especially sturdy). Other options are various project boxes[6], 3D printing, etc. It's usually easy enough to cut out/drill whatever you need.
At the end of the day you can do some pretty impressive things like directly combining temperature sensors, humidity, presence detection, PIR motion, air particulate, relays, etc even on a single board thanks to ample GPIO and esphome. All for (typically) something like $10 per "location" where you need the stuff. Even less if you buy from Aliexpress, etc.
Of course for "install" you'll need power supplies and (typically) USB-A to micro-USB power cables but most of us have drawers full of these things from old phones, etc. Good news is ESP32 boards absolutely sip power (something like 100mW or less) even with all of your "stuff" attached.
[0] - https://www.amazon.com/ESP-WROOM-32-Development-Microcontrol...
[1] - https://www.amazon.com/EDGELEC-Breadboard-Optional-Assorted-...
[2] - https://www.amazon.com/Breadboards-Solderless-Breadboard-Dis...
[3] - https://esphome.io/index.html
[4] - https://www.amazon.com/Teyleten-Robot-Digital-Temperature-Hu...
[5] - https://lastminuteengineers.com/esp32-pinout-reference/
[6] - https://www.amazon.com/LeMotech-Plastic-Electrical-Junction-...