Update regarding the ESP8266
Over the past several months, I've been working on a project to bring a REST interface to BrewPi controllers. Part of this work led to the discovery of a number of bugs in the v14 firmware release, which is concerning considering that firmware has been out for almost a year now. To ensure there were no bugs in the v15-beta firmware I created a testing matrix -- but this has revealed a separate, related issue: At the moment I’m maintaining way too many versions of this project.
As you may know, the Espressif controller landscape has changed considerably over the past seven years. Building on the ESP8266's popularity, Espressif has released newer chips such as the ESP32, ESP32-S2, ESP32-S3, and ESP32-C3, which offer significant new features like multiple cores and Bluetooth support. While the ESP8266 was once a popular and cost-effective choice, Espressif's level of support has dropped resulting in major, breaking issues persisting in the official framework without attention for months/years. Although I've been able to work around these bugs in many cases, time spent doing this is time I'm not able to use working on new features.
As a result of this changing landscape, I've decided to focus future development efforts on the ESP32 and ESP32-S2 platforms following the full release of v15. This means that I will no longer be testing against ESP8266-based chips and will not be providing primary troubleshooting and support for issues related to these chips. However, I will continue to release firmware - including some of the new features planned for v16 - for these chips as long as they continue to compile without significant errors.
For brand new users, my recommendation is to either use the
ESP32 (preferably with a TFT!) or an ESP32-S2. The
LoLin S2 Mini is a pin compatible replacement for the D1 Mini, meaning that both new and existing builds using my PCB designs should be able to directly replace the controller with a LoLin S2 Mini without other hardware changes.
If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to either post here or reach out directly. I'll post another reminder about this when v15 is released.