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Comment by epcoa | Hacker News Reader

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epcoa

> are these intended primarily for hobbyists?

They’re not really intended at all for hobbyists. The espressif products are in countless IoT devices.

https://www.espressif.com/

This is not marketing aimed at hobbyists.

Further I think most of the people using ESPHome and the like are reflashing commercial products.

> the go-to chip for commercial applications?

For a pacemaker, a Mars rover or a video game console? What exactly do you think unifies “commercial application” that would allow narrowing down in such a way.

If you’re talking about low cost IoT, there are a handful of vendors including Beken, Realtek, SiLabs, ST, TI, nRF. For this super low cost WiFi/BLE consumer niche espressif is not the only player but they are dominant along with nRF and Beken.

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One concern is supply chain and working with a Chinese company. If you build something that has to guarantee a 10 or 20 year supply some companies might balk at the ESP32. I think Espressif has jumped over into the "reputable" pool but it could still be a concern.

On the other hand when someone like TI prices their parts at like 30x the cost (e.g. ESP32-WROOM $3, TI CC3235SF $73) you can probably afford to build up a 10 year supply, especially with volume discounts.

I don't know about this particular comparison but yes, lifetime-buys can be a good strategy.

Espressif is usually very good with both pricing and availability if you wish to buy in bulk.

I bought 1000 ESP32-S2 chips (not modules) for a project, it cost me a grand total of 1200 bucks as a nobody. During the height of the shortage from most western manufacturers too!

What were they used for? :)

> If you build something that has to guarantee a 10 or 20 year supply

Consumer products routinely drop support after 3/5 years, Android phones being exhibit A, Sonos speakers are exhibit B, and Google in general being in the corner of shame.

While I applaud any efforts at product longevity, I am not getting the impression that it's a first-priority concern at present.

Sonos dropped support for speakers that were 10+ years old (and even then, still kept around the old app to mostly support them). Not sure what you’re on about with a 3 year lifespan…

That's neither here nor there. I have speakers that are 16 years old, Creative Gigaworks T3. In their 6th year, the circuit board in their sound remote died, rendering them useless. There are no complex chips there, nothing proprietary, but Creative no longer manufactured it, 5 years old, and so repair was impossible.

I was able to fix them by finding someone who sells a replacement remote on TaoBao and getting a shipping company to send it to me at 2x the price.

Point is - availability of parts does not guarantee manufacturer has any interest is supporting the product.

On the contrary, if manufacturer wants to fix something, they actually can, even if exact same parts aren't available.

>One concern is supply chain

Esp32 is available at every major Western distributor (digikey mouser etc) this hasn't been a real concern for many years

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