The rumors about ESP32 (possibly P4)

[djixon]

According to some rumors on the net, one of the future ESP32 (possibly P4) could be equipped with direct wireless HDMI standard sought in 2020 by Shenzhen Lenkang Technology, or some sort of Miracast reduced standard which would allow it to wirelessly transmit a video buffer from, lets say LVGL memory buffer, to some smart TV or mobile phone, capable to receive video over WIFI-direct. That would be a real WOW for a device of such small dimensions and opening a tons of new possibilities for different designs. A LCD is an expensive part (with a respect to other components), it sucks the most of the current, requires larger battery (for mobile designs), occupies a lot of pins (those with parallel interfaces consume more than half of ESP32 pins, reducing availability of other implemented modules to be actually used), also a LCD impacts the size of final product and makes it sensitive (fragile) on dropping and reduce operational conditions to narrowed temperature ranges etc.
However, allowing the same (or even better functionality) through direct WIFI to some external display or phone, would allow development "on board", debugging through it, without needs for console serials etc. final designs would be smaller, with better energy efficiency etc. and display capability would be provided through such wireless interface and all pins available for other functions.

I understand, that official releasing date is kind of company secret but I am also asking why some sort of those already existing standards like WIDI, GoogleCast, Miracast or any other is not ported to actual ESP32 versions? All are equipped with WIFI module, the only missing part is software in ROM

[ESP_Sprite]

Not saying this is technically impossible (although it's not gonna happen on the P4 as that chip does not have any radios, WiFi or otherwise), but I'm not aware of any project like this within Espressif.

[djixon]

Well, sure its possible ... only you need is some open source standard for video transfer through direct wifi .... maybe, its more related to graphic library framework like LVGL (since the most of those standards are the one-way direction) however it can be improved to be bi-directional, where for example events from touch (of mobile phone which receives a video from ESP) or an external BT keyboard could be "linked" too as an input devices or VideoChat in-between two devices both implementing such video protocol.

Anyway, you can think about that as an universal feature integrated into ROM (like primary boot loader (or BIOS inside ESP) where configuration of chip can be setup through such video interface. For example, on your screen of mobile-phone or smart TV you see BIOS of ESP chip, with configurable parameters (pretty much the same as you can see by entering PC BIOS).So full ESP configuration would be adjustable from such a BIOS. For example enabling SPI (pads configuration, freq etc), PSRAM ... etc basically all the things you perform in SDKCONFIG, like enabling LCD if it is presented with configurable resolutions , ESP pads used for it, interface it uses, Touch etc, and allow that whole such a configuration is then saved in flash as default booting option) once chip gets the power voltage it runs with completely new setup from BIOS. Sure, such a bios would need to provide callable driver functions (because in such a case the whole HAL is behind the BIOS, which is extremely powerful feature, because MAIN application then "communicate" with BIOS and is completely independent on hardware changes)

Such dynamic configuration would allow that once you "fill" your device with your "master-piece of code smartly written to run on any resolution" such a programed ESP chip would be able to work in different hardware environments. For example, you put in hardware (board) equipped with different audio chip (just change settings in bios) and it works, different LCD panel ... no problem, just change settings in BIOS and it works ... it would speed up developing processes thousand times.

For example, you could make an universal program to control 8 channels relay build it and publish final HEX. Any new-bee user burn it into flash, and it works (without any code change). In BIOS he only have to adjust which pins are connected to which relay(s) on his hardware design, to adjust is logic inverted or not, to adjust for example SSID and PASS for his wifi network and he is done.
Do you see the benefits now?
It would be allow also to an advanced user, to port mini OS into ESP with configurable features promoted into BIOS. Such an mini OS could provide SpeachRecognition features, or other CLOUD AI services through wifi connection, So end user, just flash the published HEX into his blank ESP chip, configure BIOS and parameters promoted to BIOS from such an mini OS and his ESP automatically runs into his hardware design.

That IS the future of IoT ... be the first to catch for it.

[ESP_Sprite]

Yeah nah. 99.9999% of our chips go into fixed-function devices, things that have hardware attached that is well-known at the moment the firmware is written; your proposed use case is such a niche function for us that developing it, let alone putting it into ROM (where it can't ever be upgraded without respinning the chip design), is not very interesting. However, as I said, nothing is stopping you from implementing it as a library that gets linked into the flashable binary; up to a point you could say that it already kinda exists, in the form of things like ESPHome, WiFi-manager like solutions and other things that make the ESP32 show up as an access point and serve a browser page in order to configure the hardware.