Choosing a good ESP board for Bluetooth proxy

Hardware
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Hi everyone,

I’m looking for recommendations on ESP32 boards or other variants that handle BLE proxy tasks well, stay cooler, and provide stable Bluetooth performance.

I’ve already tried using an ESP32 CH340 Type-C board — it works, but the CPU gets very hot, raising concerns about long-term stability.

I saw a project where someone ran a Bluetooth proxy on an ESP32‑C3 SuperMini — they reported it handled multiple BLE sensors reliably despite its tiny size and limited resources. What do you think about using the C3 for this purpose?

If you have real-world experience running a BLE proxy on different ESP boards, I’d love to hear your thoughts!

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Ideally you want a board with Ethernet wired and wireless. Wired Ethernet for connection to your network and wireless for Bluetooth without interference from WiFi. See the advice here: https://esphome.io/components/bluetooth_proxy/#improving-reception-performance

Being able to power the board from a PoE switch is also an advantage.

The Olimex ESP32-POE-ISO-EA is a well regarded board for this and I have found it also to be faultless.

There’s also some great advice in this topic Great ESP32 Board for an ESPHome Bluetooth Proxy Read the whole thread, not just the first post. Posts by BDraco and Clyde Stubbs in particular. Both very active in ESPHome development.

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