ESP32 devboard to ESP32 devboard via usb

[MartynC]

Is it possible to have 2 or more ESP32s talking to each other through the usb on a dev board using one of the usb host chips such as the CH559?

[ESP_Sprite]

Probably, but why would you if you can also just connect the UARTs together?

[MartynC]

I am in the early stages of designing an art project/display where a set of ESP32 dev boards attach to a main PCB vertically using the usb connection. I want all communication to go through the usb so there are no connections/wires to the pins. I know this is not the best option but I want a clean looking (no wires) project.

[ESP_Sprite]

Do note that depending on what you want to do, a setup like that is never going to be trivial. First of all, USB is a single-master bus, so there's no way that you can 'just' have all ESP32s talk to each other like you would when you would have e.g. an UART-based bus. Secondly, using CH559 would imply writing software for it that that has a 'driver' for the USB-to-serial port on each ESP32 devboard and polls each board, in turn. Given the fact that the CH559 is an 8-bit uC, I can't imagine a solution like that gives much bandwidth.

As an alternative, perhaps you can use something like ESP-Now to wirelessly have the ESP32s communicate?

[chegewara]

Or you could use esp32 S2 instead of ch559. It is just theoretically possible and you would have to write esp32 S2 code, but I think it's doable.
Well, USB part is not that complicated I think, but esp32 S2 has like 2 or 3 hardware uart.

[MartynC]

Or you could use esp32 S2 instead of ch559. It is just theoretically possible and you would have to write esp32 S2 code, but I think it's doable.
Well, USB part is not that complicated I think, but esp32 S2 has like 2 or 3 hardware uart.

I looked at this but the selected dev board has the regular ESP32.

[MartynC]

@ESP_Sprite.

Thanks. ESP-Now may work.