ESP32-C5 and ESPHome

Hardware
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1

Anybody here been able to set up an ESP32-C5 with ESPHome yet?

I’m working on a project where I need to detect if a specific 5GHz SSID is available and thought a ESP32-C5 might be able to sniff for it.

I have a prototype for 2.4GHz working on an ESP32-WROOM-32 but I can’t get anything onto the ESP32-C5-WROOM-1 via the ESPHome add-on or the Python ESPTool that gets it to show up, even with just a fallback hotspot.

2

Hello chairstacker,

More places to look.

3

Thanks @Sir_Goodenough,

I found a reference to this board on the ESPHome website and asked the same question on the Discord Server - unfortunately, neither place had a solution either :man_shrugging:

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4

No full solution yet, but I found this project:
Evil-Project-Team/ESP32-C5-J4CK3D: An advanced WiFi scanning and packet sniffing toolkit for the ESP32-C5, featuring a cyberpunk-inspired web interface.
It shows me at least that the ESP32-C5 is working as it should, i.e. it can scan the 2.4GHz as well as the 5GHz band.

5

After I wasn’t able to get anything other than the Proof of Concept working on the ESP32-C5 I went for an implementation on a RPi 3 that I had lying around - also needed a 5GHz USB WiFi Adaptor for the project but had one of these as well.

Now, whenever one of my Chromecast Audios drops off the Home WiFi, the RPi 3 detects the 5GHz AP it sets up, cuts the power to it for 5 seconds and when the Chromecast device powers back up, it latches on the Home WiFi again and - normally - even starts to play again.

I admit that this is a rather complicated solution, but ever since the Chromecast Certificate Disaster earlier this year, three of my Chromecast Audios drop off the Home WiFi now and then, and this is the only way I found to automatically, reliably, and quickly get them connected again.

6

Hello,

today I made it, to add the ESP32-C5 to my ESPhome :grinning:

Seems to be working now with ESPhome Version 2025.10.3

esphome:
name: esp32c5test
friendly_name: ESP32c5test

esp32:
variant: esp32c5
flash_size: 8MB
framework:
version: latest
type: esp-idf

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7

Hi,

can you give a link of the esp32 c5 model used?

Thanks.

8

Hi,

I used a ESP32-C5-DevKitC-1-N8R4. Most functions are already available in ESPHOME, but in the WIFI settings the choice of 2,4Ghz or 5Ghz is of course still missing, also you currently can only choose channels between 1 and 14. But if the 5Ghz signal is good, the C5 will connect to it automatically.

9

How are you getting the code on the device?

Whatever I try, the only response I get is this:

image
image539×182 9.76 KB

The device seems to be connected and when I go to LOGS on this screen

image
image457×116 3.59 KB

and hit RESET DEVICE I get this

[18:48:10]ESP-ROM:esp32c5-eco2-20250121
[18:48:10]Build:Jan 21 2025
[18:48:10]rst:0x15 (USB_UART_HPSYS),boot:0x8 (DOWNLOAD(UART0/USB))
[18:48:10]Core0 Saved PC:0x4001bfc2
[18:48:10]waiting for download

But I the above error always shows, no matter if I try ‘PREPARE FOR FIRST USE’ or ‘INSTALL’ for a .bin file :frowning:

10

I had the same issues with flashing the image to my ESP32-C5 with the WebFlasher. What worked for me was using the Tamota ESP-Flasher App (GitHub - Jason2866/ESP_Flasher: Tasmota Flasher for ESP8266 and ESP32x 👽)

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11

Thanks for the hint! :+1:

I downloaded the flasher but couldn’t get it to work on the first & second try. Got a message that it can’t upload to the device due to a COM issue.

Need to look again when I have more time.

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12

This is the only way it worked out for me.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CNtaRftNsWw21lPjIGaT2C75pab2gi2N/view?usp=sharing

13

This is great, thank you!

The Tasmota ESP Flasher did the trick!

I’ve added these lines to the YAML code and now I can flash from the device’s web interface after selecting ‘Manual download’ as the installation method and using the ota version of the
bin file - don’t even need the Tasmota Flasher any more after the initial install :slight_smile:

web_server:
  port: 80
  include_internal: true

Trying to install ‘Wirelessly’ still fails, but at least I now have a workaround to install code on the C5 :+1:

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14

I’ve got a Firebeatle 2 ESP32-C5 and while I struggled to get it working on ESPhome, it’s now behaving, and I’m able to wirelessly update it using esphome as well. My initial config looks like this:

esphome:
name: firebeetle-c5
friendly_name: FireBeetle C5

esp32:
variant: esp32c5
flash_size: 4MB
framework:
type: esp-idf
version: recommended

I followed the above instructions and flashed it with the ESP-Flasher the first time.

Good luck!

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