First, the big news. The latest updates to the Micropython code base now allow it to be built with Espressif’s ESP-IDF version 5.2. At the same time these changes were pushed out into the Micropython repository, Espressif dropped ESP-IDF 5.2.1, which I installed on my development system, then used to build my updated Micropython with the latest changes noted above. Micropython successfully built and I was then able to flash one of my ESP32-S3 development boards, and away I went with my stand-alone WiFi test board.

I then used the same ESP-IDF tool chain to build one of my C++ embedded applications, in which it joins my home WiFi access point and allows me to then bring up its simple web page. Again, everything built and flashed. This is with an ESP32-S3 development board with 32 MiB flash and 8 MiB external ram.

CircuitPython Update

One other update comes from CircuitPython: they’ve just dropped version 9.0.0 release candidate 0. I’ve downloaded and installed it on two of my boards that can handle it, and so far it’s doing just fine. If you like CircuitPython and use it for ESP32-S3-based boards, then by all means consider downloading and installing this version. It’s clean and stable enough for you to work with. Quoting from the release note, the key features out of many that caught my eye are:

• Merge updates from MicroPython v1.19.1, v1.20.0, and v1.21.0.
• Espressif: update to ESP-IDF v5.1.3.

Micropython and CircuitPython are moving rapidly, adding support for the latest boards as well as adding new functionality for existing devices, especially on the Espressif side of things.

I’ve been busy these past few weeks with my part-time job. The week of February 12th I spent out in Louisiana and billed 65 hours for the week. This week I’ve been doing other tasks, both to catch up from being on travel the week before as well as doing much less work in my new part time job. I still managed to read a bit and discovered, while out in Louisiana, that updates had been made to the open source project Micropython (version 1.22.2 was released) as well as Espressif’s commercial but open ESP-IDF C/C++ embedded tool chain.

When I got back this week I updated my personal fork of Micropython on Github, then updated my home Micropython development area via git, then set about testing all the updates in Micropython by using ESP-IDF 5.0.4 to build it, then began to experiment to see if Micropython would build with ESP-IDF 5.1.2. I mention ESP-IDF version 5.1.2 because Adafruit wrote that the latest CircuitPython beta, 9.0.0 beta 2, was built with ESP-IDF 5.1.2 after rolling in the latest changes from Micropython. When Micropython 1.22.0 was released in January the developers had locked in ESP-IDF 5.0.4 as the version that would build Micropython. I tried to use 5.1.2 and Micropython failed to build, so I stayed with ESP-IDF 5.0.4. Now the latest Micropython updates build successfully with 5.1.2, which the bottom of the little test web page provided by one of my ESP32-S3 N8R8 boards shows (see above). I’m quite happy that main Micropython builds with ESP-IDF 5.1.2 because I currently have three versions of ESP-IDF; 5.0.4, 5.1.2, and 5.2. I would like to drop the oldest (5.0.4) and even move Micropython compilation up to 5.2 so I can drop 5.1.2 as well. I do all my development with 5.2, only using an older version to build Micropython.

This next example is another Espressif board, the ESP32-S3 N32R8 running code written in C++ and compiled with ESP-IDF 5.2. As you should note at the bottom it’s been built with ESP-IDF 5.2, which is the current stable release. So far everything is working well, especially WiFi. I’m in the process of finishing up a MAX7219 C++ class using SPI for communication with the MAX7219. Once finished I’ll write about it here as well as push the source up to my modest Github space.