I recently found an ESP32 S2 Mini that has a compatible pinout to a Wemos D1 Mini based on the 8266. I want to experiment with replacing the few D1 I have with ESP32 S2 as a hardware generation refresh. While I have no pressing reason, the faster performance along with safer wifi implementation are interesting. I believe there may also be an upcoming ESP32 C3 that is or will be available in a pin compatible format.
Has anyone done research on this? What are your thoughts?
I am not interested in what option is cheaper or whether one is overkill if the 8266 has been working fine, but am interested in the most advanced and performing technology. I am no longer planning on ever using 8266 again now that these new ESP32 based mini variants are available.
Beside ESP32 based D1 mini’s exist already for years (no original lolin ware). Also a C3 Mini is available beside the S2 Mini and the original D1 Mini
Actually there are out there already for quite some time… This is an 20 month old article from april 2021 that shows some modules from AI Thinker which are sold till today:
On the “faster performance”: I never outperformed a esp8266 - so for all the basic tasks a esp82xx will probably be as good as a esp32-x. When doing stuff with colored displays for sure some extra psram will be helpful/needed which are only available for some esp32’s.
When it comes down to the “safer wifi implementation” you probably mean that the esp32 saves the credentials with crypto while the esp82xx’s just keep them in plain text. That’s obviously no good and specially people which don’t bother updating there thingies (because they just do their work ) could be a valuable target here…
Just thinking of someone got his vulnerable tasmota (or espeasy, espurna, esphome, custom arduino sketch, etc.) running which could be wirelessly owned from outside there homes. A firmware dump later and the unknown intruder got network access (in best case only to iot network, in worst case the whole network is defeated already)
@orange-assistant Thanks for the feedback. I typically get my ESPs on amazon.com and there I have never found a C3 in mini format, and I have found the S2 in mini format only recently. I know it takes a while before boards make it from the Chinese market (aliexpress and similar) but am surprised on it taking so long. Anyhow, I believe official support for the S2 was only added recently so finding it sooner wouldn’t have helped me much.
As for performance, I like the 32 series better mostly for PWM performance as I have several systems controlling fans and was never able to get good performance out of a 8266 due to the slower PWM performance. I also like the higher number of GPIO which was needed for a few of my ESP builds too. Clock speedwise, I am not sure whether any of my builds actually need or benefit from the higher speed but it can’t hurt.
In a recent build where I put an 8266 and HTU21D temperature sensor inside the IKEA particulate sensor, I found that both the PM sensor and the 8266 generate enough heat to skew my temperature measurements. I quickly compared heat output between an 8266 and an S2 mini using a FLIR camera and it seems to be lower… so I will try to convert that build to an S2 in hopes that the overall heat generated won’t affect the temperature measurement as much.
lolin ware). Also a 
