anujdeshpande

Espressif is taking quite a radical approach as compared to other semiconductor companies. They provide everything from a Cloud SaaS for their chips, to open source phone apps that connect over BLE/WiFi to their chips, reference hardware designs, integrations with voice assistants, and more. Typically, semiconductor companies have shied away from providing anything comprehensive because they don't want to upset their distributors and partners who provide the missing services - but not Espressif.

I think if the US-China chip war hadn't been going on, and customers wouldn't have been paranoid of using a Chinese chip (and being in a tough spot like Huawei customers), Espressif chipsets would be waaaaay more popular.

Disclaimer/source - worked at Espressif for a bit (2017-2019)

kkielhofner
I can't agree with this enough. Willow[0] (disclaimer - I'm the creator) just wouldn't be possible without the robust Espressif ecosystem, libraries, code samples, docs, etc. Let alone all on a finished product (ESP BOX, $50) available worldwide through their distribution channels! We have a lot of background and experience in this and related fields but the fact remains we went from concept to initial release in less than six weeks (with two part time devs - if you include me, which you shouldn't haha).

[0] - https://github.com/toverainc/willow/