Hardware prototyping

Proto

Hands-on guides to building small hardware with ESP32 boards, sensors and a little code.

Xiaozhi on ESP32: A Practical Guide to Building Your Own AI Voice Assistant article cover

Xiaozhi on ESP32: A Practical Guide to Building Your Own AI Voice Assistant

Xiaozhi is open-source firmware that turns a low-cost ESP32-S3 board into a talking assistant, and it is one of the easiest ways for a beginner to put a large language model inside a small device.

Running Your Own Server for an ESP32 Voice Assistant With xiaozhi-esp32-server article cover

Running Your Own Server for an ESP32 Voice Assistant With xiaozhi-esp32-server

The open-source xiaozhi-esp32-server lets you choose the speech, language and voice models behind a Xiaozhi device, keep data on your own machine and add tools, memory and voice recognition.

ElatoAI: How an ESP32 Turns a Toy Into a Real-Time Voice Companion article cover

ElatoAI: How an ESP32 Turns a Toy Into a Real-Time Voice Companion

ElatoAI is an open-source stack that connects a small ESP32-S3 board to real-time voice models, so a plush toy or desk gadget can hold a spoken conversation without a phone in the loop.

A Language Model on a Microcontroller: What the esp32-ai Project Shows and What It Does Not article cover

A Language Model on a Microcontroller: What the esp32-ai Project Shows and What It Does Not

The open-source esp32-ai project runs a 28.9 million parameter language model directly on an ESP32-S3 by keeping most of it in flash memory, and its honest limits teach as much as its results.

Clawdmeter and Desk Dashboards: Putting Your AI Coding Usage on a Small ESP32 Screen article cover

Clawdmeter and Desk Dashboards: Putting Your AI Coding Usage on a Small ESP32 Screen

Clawdmeter is an open-source ESP32 desk display that shows how much of your AI coding plan you have used, and it is a clear example of how a host computer, Bluetooth and a small screen can work together.

Clawd Mochi: A Tiny Offline ESP32 Desk Companion You Can Build in an Afternoon article cover

Clawd Mochi: A Tiny Offline ESP32 Desk Companion You Can Build in an Afternoon

Clawd Mochi is a small open-source desk character built from an ESP32-C3, a 1.54-inch screen and a 3D-printed case, controlled from any phone browser through its own Wi-Fi hotspot.

Letting an AI Agent Write Your ESP32 Firmware: What Works and Where to Stay Careful article cover

Letting an AI Agent Write Your ESP32 Firmware: What Works and Where to Stay Careful

More makers now build ESP32 gadgets such as bird feeder cameras, flight trackers and desk pets by describing them to an AI coding agent, and a few habits make the difference between a working device and a frustrating week.

On-Device Vision Without Writing Model Code: Face Detection on the XIAO ESP32S3 Sense article cover

On-Device Vision Without Writing Model Code: Face Detection on the XIAO ESP32S3 Sense

With the SenseCraft AI web tool, a thumb-sized XIAO ESP32S3 Sense camera board can run a face detection model on the chip and send results over GPIO, serial or MQTT, with no cloud needed for the detection itself.

RuView and Wi-Fi Sensing: How Cheap ESP32 Boards Can Detect People Without Cameras article cover

RuView and Wi-Fi Sensing: How Cheap ESP32 Boards Can Detect People Without Cameras

RuView is an open-source project that reads tiny changes in Wi-Fi signals with ESP32 boards to sense presence, motion and breathing, and it is a useful lesson in both what radio sensing can do and how carefully its claims need to be checked.

Muse Gadgets: Building Your Own ESP32 Device for Meta's AI Assistant article cover

Muse Gadgets: Building Your Own ESP32 Device for Meta's AI Assistant

Meta's open-source Muse Gadgets SDK lets makers flash ESP32 boards and Raspberry Pis so they work with the Muse assistant, from a simple status light to a screen with push-to-talk, and it is built to be set up with an AI coding agent.

ESP32 and E-Ink: Low-Power Display Projects That Serve Their Own Web Page article cover

ESP32 and E-Ink: Low-Power Display Projects That Serve Their Own Web Page

Pairing an ESP32 with an e-ink panel gives you a screen that keeps its picture without power and a tiny web server for control, which is why it shows up in image viewers, pocket games and wall dashboards.

Building a Robot Dog on an ESP32: What the Petoi BiBoard and OpenCat Offer Beginners article cover

Building a Robot Dog on an ESP32: What the Petoi BiBoard and OpenCat Offer Beginners

The Petoi BiBoard is an ESP32 board made for walking robots, with up to twelve servo outputs and a motion sensor, and the open-source OpenCat framework handles gaits and balance so you can focus on behaviour.

Learning the ESP32 One Day at a Time: A Guide to the 100 Days 100 IoT Projects Collection article cover

Learning the ESP32 One Day at a Time: A Guide to the 100 Days 100 IoT Projects Collection

The open-source 100 Days 100 IoT Projects collection breaks ESP32 and MicroPython learning into small daily builds, each with code, wiring and notes, and it pairs well with an AI assistant as a patient tutor.