ESP modules - standalone or not?

[bodzio_stawski]

Hello,

When searching for web servers turorials based on ESP modules, I'm having trouble understanding a general thing.


In general, a web server can probably be made in many ways. You can use a standalone ESP8266, or ESP32, or ESP module in combination with microcontroller (like STM32) sending AT commands.

Question: which variant is theoretically better when creating a device "from scratch"? Is the combination of ESP+STM more suitable for existing STM32 devices "extended" with WiFi functionality provided by the ESP module, or is there simply another reason why the STM32 should be a "master" controller than it would be worth using the ESP module alone?

[BlackICE]

I think it depends on how much resources RAM, ROM, CPU your web server needs? If you can fit what you want done in the ESP32 and it works fast enough then stand alone would be fine. Writing the web server code for the ESP32 may be more time consuming and limiting compare to other processors. So if it a "one of" and not for profit, it may be easily to use another processor to make the software side easier.

[liaifat85]

For general purposes like receiving sensor data or controlling the load, only one ESP32/8266 is enough. Firebase is a good choice:

https://www.theengineeringprojects.com/2022/03/reading-data-from-firebase-database-with-esp32.html

Yes, for some applications you may need to combine the ESP module with a microcontroller like the STM32. If your project requires more computational power or complex data processing beyond the capabilities of the ESP module alone, integrating it with a microcontroller like the STM32 allows you to leverage the additional processing capability of the microcontroller.

[JustMeHere]

As long as you're serving up static files and not putting too many string manipulations on the ESP32, it should be able to do a decent job.  It has two cores (don't mess with the single core modules.)  Use one core for your program, and allow the other core to handle all of the Wifi work.  If you tie up the Wifi core, it will have issues dropping connections.  Try to just serve HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files.  Use JS on the client end for the heavy lifting.  For example, if you want to convert C to F, load send the C data to the browser and let JS in the browser do the math to calculate F.  Avoid string manipulation on the ESP32.  Just send the HTML, CSS, JS, Graphics, etc to the client and let it do the hard work.