Espressif Family
Arduino and a vast amount of peripheral boards lack integration of the networking capabilities in one SoC. Espressif ESP series was the natural answer for this disadvantage as their ESP 8266 with integrated WiFi, introduced in 2014, is widely recognised as a turning point for the IoT market, delivering de-facto fully functional IoT chip, providing high performance and low power to the end users and developers. ESP32, launched in 2016, brought even more disruptive effects to the IoT ecosystems, introducing an additional Bluetooth interface to the above.
The most popular series of these microcontrollers are ESP8266EX, ESP32, ESP32S, C and H families.
The significant difference is that ESP SoCs (both 8266 and 32) use 3.3 V logic, while most (but not all!) Arduinos use 5 V logic. This can be easily handled using one or bi-directional voltage converters/adapters. Additionally, many ESP boards and development kits offer double power source, including 5 V, even if the device itself still operates on 3.3 V
Detailed description is presented in the following chapters:
