LilyGO has been very busy in recent weeks, and their latest product is the “T-Dongle ESP32-S2” development board that looks very much like Espressif ESP32-S3-USB-OTG board development board but is equipped with the single-core WiFi-only ESP32-S2 processor instead of the dual-core ESP32-S3 SoC with WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 5.0.
The T-Dongle ESP32-S2 board is designed for the development of USB applications and comes with USB OTG female and male ports, as well as the same 1.14-inch color display found on T-Display RP2040/ESP32 and T-PicoC3 boards.
T-Dongle ESP32-S2 development board specifications:
- Wireless SoC – Espressif Systems ESP32-S2 single-core Xtensa LX7 processor @ up to 240 MHz with 320 kB SRAM, 128 kB ROM, WiFi 4 connectivity
- Antennas – 3D antenna, IPEX antenna connector
- Storage – MicroSD card socket
- Display – 1.14-inch full-color IPS LCD Display (ST7789V SPI controller) with 240 x 135 resolution
- USB
- 1x USB OTG female port to connect an external USB device (e.g. mouse, keyboard, thumb drive, etc…)
- 1x USB OTG male port for debugging and programming the board
- Expansion – Grove connector
- Misc – Boot and Reset buttons, DIP switch to turn on/off the OTG function on the male port
- Power Supply – 5V via USB male port
- Dimensions – 7.2 x 2.3 x 1.2 cm
The company says the board can be programmed with the Arduino IDE or VS Code and provides a completely empty Github repository. Until some code is committed, you may have to check out ESP32-S3-USB-OTG’s documentation for the USB function (using ESP-IDF VS Code Extension), as well as code samples, and TTGO-T-Display repo for the display code (Arduino sketch). It’s not ideal…
That type of board is probably mostly interesting for software development of applications leveraging the USB capabilities of the ESP32-S2 or ESP32-S3 processor, and it could be used for USB camera video streaming, as a 4G WiFi hotspot, a wireless USB storage device, etc…
LilyGO T-Dongle ESP32-S2 development board is quite cheaper than the official $35 ESP32-S3-USB-OTG board, as it is currently selling for $13.32 including shipping.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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Very curious to know how it manages that, since the S2 only has a single OTG port?
It seems more likely that the A male is just usb-serial, but I’d be happy to be proven wrong!
They obviously can’t just magically add new USB-ports to the ESP32 and there’s clearly no USB-hub controller on the PCB, so yes, the male port is just simply connected to a USB UART-chip or the USB-pins on the ESP32, depending on how you’ve set the DIP-switches.
Why stick the S2 when the S3 is so much more. Just makes no sense for a board like this. Since it’s obviously not going to be low power.
Because the S3’s availability is practically nonexistent?
@WereCatf said: “Because the S3’s availability is practically nonexistent?”
No, there are plenty of ESP32-S3 modules available. Espressif Systems contracts fabs in Mainland China. Evidently for Espressif there is no “chip shortage”:
https://www.findchips.com/search/ESP32-S3
https://octopart.com/search?q=ESP32-S3¤cy=USD&specs=0
For example:
1. ESP32-S3R8V, 8MB PSRAM, 810 In Stock, Qty.-1 USD $2.31 ea.
2. ESP32-S3R2, 2MB PSRAM, 661 In Stock, Qty.-1 USD $1.98 ea.
A couple of hundred in stock isn’t a lot, when companies typically buy in the thousands.
Well, whatever, I don’t have any actual first-hand knowledge on why the company didn’t use ESP32-S3 and I’m just guessing, so I’ll refrain from commenting any further.
@WereCatf said: “A couple of hundred in stock isn’t a lot, when companies typically buy in the thousands.”
From what I’ve seen if there are 600+ in stock at Digi-Key (or similar) and you order thousands, Espressif will fulfill the order rapidly but there be at least two shipments in close succession, one from Digi-Key from stock on-hand and one drop-shipped with the rest from China. Espressif seems to have its supply chain sorted, at least for high demand products.