A hands-on account of migrating several Raspberry Pi IoT projects to $5 ESP32 microcontrollers. Projects covered include an RGB LED strip controller using WLED with audio reactivity, multi-purpose sensor nodes with ESPHome, a DIY infrared blaster, a lightweight uptime monitor, and Bluetooth presence detection proxies for Home Assistant. The ESP32 handled all these tasks efficiently, booting in seconds and running only the necessary firmware, while the Raspberry Pi was retained for Linux-based experiments.
Table of contents
Getting a smaller LED strip controllerBuilding multi-purpose sensor nodesSmaller devices to help Home AssistantRunning network utility to monitor services uptimeBroadening Bluetooth presence detection reachCheaper isn’t always a compromiseSort: