Golioth ESP-IDF SDK connects ESP32 boards to the Golioth Cloud

Golioth have released an open-source “ESP-IDF SDK” to let ESP32 hardware connect to their Golioth Cloud, extending existing support from the existing Zephyr SDK.

We previously covered the Golioth IoT development platform with a Zephyr SDK supporting nRF9160 and ESP32-C3 (officially), as well as over 100 other platforms, that aims to make it easier for hardware developers to connect things to the internet without needing to know how to use AWS IoT, Azure IoT, or the other cloud services.

While in theory, it would be possible to keep using the Zephyr SDK on ESP32 hardware, the ESP-IDF framework is the main tool of Espressif Systems, and they will release new code to that ecosystem first. So even though Espressif Systems have another team that is bringing many of the same features to Zephyr, the changes will be implemented in the ESP-ID framework first.

The Golioth ESP-IDF SDK will be able to pick up new features basically instantly, as it acts as a “library” in the Espressif ESP-IDF framework. So that just means developers will be able to keep using the Golioth Cloud and the new features and/or bug fixes in the ESP-IDF without having to wait for a Zephyr OS port.

As discussed in the official announcement, all Cloud enablements on Golioth are now available for ESP-IDF projects including OTA firmware updates, command and control, time-series databases, and logging. Golioth does not try to lock you to one specific hardware platform or even the Golioth Cloud itself and offers an “easy export” feature for all cloud side data in order to use it with 3rd party visualization and cloud platforms. If you’d like to have a try, you can check out the Github repository with the code, examples, and instructions to get started.

When asking for some extra details from the Golioth Team, Chris Gammell, Golioth Developer Relations, told CNX Software he was especially excited about the ESP32-H2 chipset with support for Thread and Matter, as the Golioth Cloud APIs already work with Thread devices based on Nordic Semiconductor MCU, and support should be coming soon for the ESP32-H2 parts. I also asked about ESP8266 considering it’s supported by the ESP-IDF framework, but they have not tested it yet as many users are moving to the ESP32 platforms.

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