I know I’m only a few months and projects in, but in my process of trying to make stuff that works I’ve tried a bunch of esp boards. From a specs point of view the Seeed s3plus seems like a no brainier to my untrained eye. PSRAM, 2x I2S buses, an ok amount of GPIOs and tiny to fit into smaller projects.
Can someone help me understand why they aren’t the go to board for loads of stuff at the moment? All the projects I find with them are camera, but you’d think voice, displays, LEDs and more would benefit from them no?
Learning so genuinely interested in understanding this
There are so many boards out there that the only one that are really getting a chance to stand out are the Espressif’s own boards and maybe the Arduino ones.
Rampant pace of technology and inertia, having to offload old stock. Until the new stuff gets the same load of documentation, examples and confidence, the old will still be there. Cost can also be a big factor, a few cents difference when churning out devices by the millions soon adds up. ESP devices have their limitations too, other vendors offering cheaper, more flexible, faster, less current draw, better I/O, added functionality, and a host of other reasons. To somebody with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Often you need a screwdriver or a spanner to complement your toolbox.
Sorry I seem to have wasted your time (and mine). ESP boards are not all cutting edge any more - what you see is inertia. Wait till you see what is in the pipeline. There are many competitors - see the rapid rise of the Raspberry Pi Pico series, hitching a ride on MicroPython. The power of Espressif’s penetration, especially in the hobbyist area, has been documentation in English and incorporating into the Arduino ecosystem IDE, something that other Chinese chip manufacturers have not fully grasped. Your first post makes invalid assumptions, possibly borne of ignorance. Wisdom comes with wider experience, research and learning, grasshopper.