what is the purpose of the factory AP ("ESP_6C8A79")

[kbaud1]

When you power up a factory fresh WROOM32 module (I have tested 6 so far from various suppliers, both 32 and 32D versions) it broadcasts an AP with an SSID consisting of "ESP_" and part of it's MAC address. For example, "ESP_6C8A79". If you connect a phone or pc to that AP, you are assigned an IP. usually "192.168.4.2". Gateway is 192.168.4.1. Port scan of 2000 ports revealed only the DHCP port is there (UDP port 67).

What is this for? why assign an IP to computers that connect if they can't do anything once they are there. there is no placeholder webpage or telnet access to the AT command interpreter, etc.

now if you connect to the factory image with a wired UART, you can use the AT command interpreter to do actual useful things. But wirelessly, which is what the ESPs are all about? nothing.

My interest is that we maybe installing these modules in thousands of a particular product and are looking for a fast way to program a bunch at the same time. Manually connecting a uart to each device (can't be final packaged yet) is a bit tedious. Entering the wireless world was what this chip was supposed to be about but programming it is still stuck in the past with other microcontrollers.

If I have to connect to it manually in order to load some sort of OTA firmware, then I might as well load the production software manually as well like with any other microcontroller. Being able to update in the future wirelessly is nice but that may never be needed.

[PeterR]

Well, its acting as a DHCP server, which is something!

I am guessing that you could also OTA update https://docs.espressif.com/projects/esp ... m/ota.html and/or configure the device to station mode and boot n load.

You are also able to ask Expressive to preload your application.

[kbaud1]

but in order to use OTA update, you paradoxically have to use the UART to first run the appropriate AT commands that trigger the SmartConfig (ESP Touch). It will not run wirelessly from the factory. You must physically connect a uart first.

Yes, they can preload the application. wonder what that costs. I could ask them to preload their own application but with smartconfig turned on by default?

[PeterR]

You can ask to preload you're won application.

I am not sure what a virgin ESP contains but it would seem to me that ESP would supply something with OTA.
OTA can be built and configued to use a particular server. There must be a default and so maybe you can setup your server/router etc.
Maybe I am wrong, maybe security etc prevents OTA in stock.

Anyway, we are doing pre-load & its not that expensive. Takes me 2min to down load so anything better than 3c per seems a good deal. We have 10K pa volumes so that us programmig would be a man dovetailing issue (better to outsource imho). If you're 100K+ well yea, you have some thinking to do.

[kbaud1]

Why is there a lack of applications using the new S2 even though the code base and much of the hardware is the same? Apparently, a built-in USB interface is just not as important as the hardware it replaced?

What if the factory code that is already loaded on the ESP32 came with practical OTA (Simplelink) activated in the software? Then a Devkit-C(D?) without a USB to serial chip (usb power only) would be practical. Since serial would not be required most of the time to use the device, USB becomes even more redundant.

Remember the original promise of the ESP? Wireless. Why did we go the opposite direction then with the S2?

[jimhelios]

The AP mode is very useful. My app comes up and users connect to it via wifi using a websocket, and received streamed data.