ESP32 Labs: the bench guide
Wire it, flash it, watch it, then read the code.
An interactive guide to the ESP32-S3: 32 hands-on labs with live simulators, a 3D board, a pinout, a reader that explains the firmware line by line, and the chip's datasheet made readable.
Live guide ·
Firmware (esp-labs) ·
Architecture ·
Contributing ·
Report a bug ·
Propose a lab
Contents
What's inside
Every lab runs in the browser first
Each lesson is one sheet: the goal, the pins it uses on a live pinout, the wiring, the command to flash it, the steps to tick off and a simulator of what you should see. Type a command into the simulated serial monitor and the board answers like the real firmware does.
A code reader that never overwhelms
Read the code opens the real firmware the lab flashes, taken from esp-labs at build time. Tour walks it a few lines at a time and asks you to guess first. Story follows the program as it runs, from setup() into every call. Explore explains any line you tap. New C++ words come up three at a time, and the phrasebook remembers the ones you've already met.
The datasheet, made for makers
The new Datasheet section (#/datasheet) is about the ESP32-S3 itself. Explore keeps the 10% of Espressif's documents a maker needs: the chip at a glance with a 3D dive from the board down to the die, every pin and its jobs, an atlas of all 32 peripheral blocks with a page each, and memory, clocks and power modes. Each fact cites its section of the reference, the "things that bite" are called out, and the blocks your labs have used light up as you tick steps.
A citation opens that section of the reference in a side reader, and Read turns the board guide, module datasheet, chip datasheet and technical reference into one book you can read cover to cover, with section ticks and "Continue at". Titles follow your language; the text stays Espressif's English.
[!NOTE]
Espressif's reference (docs-llm/esp32-s3/ESP32-S3_REFERENCE.md and its images/) is in the repo, so a clone and the deploy get the reader and the book. Its text stays Espressif's and is never bundled into the JS: the build emits it as static files under reference/. Without the file (see REFERENCE_FILE under Configuration) the curated pages work as usual and citations link to Espressif's official PDFs.
In your language, on your phone
The guide is in English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Polish, Turkish, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Japanese, Arabic (right to left) and Persian (right to left). Add ?lang=fr to any link to share it in a language. It works on a phone at 390 px, in light and dark themes, and respects reduced motion.
Also inside
- Meet the board: the DevKitC-1 in 3D (three.js) with six callouts. Each one lights up its part and lists the labs that use it.
- The bench log: what is flashed on the board right now and every command recorded. It is plain JSON in
public/data/, so you can update it without a rebuild.
- Progress: your ticks, the last lesson you opened and the variants you picked stay in your browser, with no account.
- The parts library at
#/parts: 42 isometric drawings of every component on the bench, coloured from design tokens only.
This is the beginning of the README. Read the rest at the original. Read the full README ↗
