Ron Salesky asked 3 years ago
Hi,
I’ve recently bought an ESP32 CAM as well as your ESP32-CAM projects book… thank you for the latter, it looks very informative! A few questions please:
The ESP32 CAM only has “ESP32-S” on the metal can, but the board and its components overall look identical to the ESP32 CAM that has “ESP32-S AI THINKER” on the can. Do you know what the difference is?
I’ve also been trying to drill down to an actual datasheet for this part. http://www.espressif.com has data sheets for various esp32 processors, but it’s really hard to tell what’s what. One data sheet is for the esp32-s2-mini which is the closest I can come to anything that sounds like esp32-s. Do you happen to know how to get to the actual part datasheet?
Do you know how stable these modules are in terms of future availability? (this is really a vendor question, I know…)
Thanks again!
Ron
Steve Mercer answered 3 years ago
You can find all the data sheets at https://www.espressif.com/en/support/documents/technical-documents?keys=&field_download_document_type_tid%5B%5D=510
AFAIK the ESP32S is the original. The new ones are the ESP32S2, ESP32S3 and ESP32C3. The ESP32S2 is 50% more power efficient than the ESP32S. These articles may help:
https://maker.pro/esp8266/tutorial/a-comparison-of-the-new-esp32-s2-to-the-esp32
https://www.cnx-software.com/2020/09/01/espressif-unveils-esp32-s2-mini-modules-esp32-s3-and-esp32-c3-socs-coming-soon/
The one with “AI Thinker” on the can is the exact same as any other ESP32 just with vendor branding. The vendor buys enough chips from Esprissif so can get whatever branding they like on the chip itself. Modules themselves will always be evolving but the core ESP32 functionality will remain the same.
Finally, these modules are for development. They have various peripherals already installed and available. When you go to market you would not be using these modules. You would be using the chip on a board of your own design with any peripherals you need.
Ron Salesky answered 3 years ago
Thank you, Steve, great info! Just found out about these this past weekend, at this price point the possibilities are endless.