Getting started with MicroPython on the ESP32

Using MicroPython is a great way to get the most of your ESP32 board. And vice versa, the ESP32 chip is a great platform for using MicroPython. This tutorial will guide you through setting up MicroPython, getting a prompt, using WebREPL, connecting to the network and communicating with the Internet, using the hardware peripherals, and controlling some external components.

Let’s get started!

Requirements

The first thing you need is a board with an ESP32 chip. The MicroPython software supports the ESP32 chip itself and any board should work. The main characteristic of a board is how the GPIO pins are connected to the outside world, and whether it includes a built-in USB-serial convertor to make the UART available to your PC.

Names of pins will be given in this tutorial using the chip names (eg GPIO2) and it should be straightforward to find which pin this corresponds to on your particular board.

Powering the board

If your board has a USB connector on it then most likely it is powered through this when connected to your PC. Otherwise you will need to power it directly. Please refer to the documentation for your board for further details.

Getting the firmware

The first thing you need to do is download the most recent MicroPython firmware .bin file to load onto your ESP32 device. You can download it from the MicroPython downloads page. From here, you have 3 main choices:

  • Stable firmware builds
  • Daily firmware builds
  • Daily firmware builds with SPIRAM support

If you are just starting with MicroPython, the best bet is to go for the Stable firmware builds. If you are an advanced, experienced MicroPython ESP32 user who would like to follow development closely and help with testing new features, there are daily builds. If your board has SPIRAM support you can use either the standard firmware or the firmware with SPIRAM support, and in the latter case you will have access to more RAM for Python objects.

Deploying the firmware

Once you have the MicroPython firmware you need to load it onto your ESP32 device. There are two main steps to do this: first you need to put your device in bootloader mode, and second you need to copy across the firmware. The exact procedure for these steps is highly dependent on the particular board and you will need to refer to its documentation for details.

Fortunately, most boards have a USB connector, a USB-serial convertor, and the DTR and RTS pins wired in a special way then deploying the firmware should be easy as all steps can be done automatically. Boards that have such features include the Adafruit Feather HUZZAH32, M5Stack, Wemos LOLIN32, and TinyPICO boards, along with the Espressif DevKitC, PICO-KIT, WROVER-KIT dev-kits.

For best results it is recommended to first erase the entire flash of your device before putting on new MicroPython firmware.

Currently we only support esptool.py to copy across the firmware. You can find this tool here: https://github.com/espressif/esptool/, or install it using pip:

pip install esptool

Versions starting with 1.3 support both Python 2.7 and Python 3.4 (or newer). An older version (at least 1.2.1 is needed) works fine but will require Python 2.7.

Using esptool.py you can erase the flash with the command:

esptool.py --port /dev/ttyUSB0 erase_flash

And then deploy the new firmware using:

esptool.py --chip esp32 --port /dev/ttyUSB0 write_flash -z 0x1000 esp32-20180511-v1.9.4.bin

Notes:

  • You might need to change the “port” setting to something else relevant for your PC
  • You may need to reduce the baudrate if you get errors when flashing (eg down to 115200 by adding --baud 115200 into the command)
  • For some boards with a particular FlashROM configuration you may need to change the flash mode (eg by adding -fm dio into the command)
  • The filename of the firmware should match the file that you have

If the above commands run without error then MicroPython should be installed on your board!

Serial prompt

Once you have the firmware on the device you can access the REPL (Python prompt) over UART0 (GPIO1=TX, GPIO3=RX), which might be connected to a USB-serial convertor, depending on your board. The baudrate is 115200.

From here you can now follow the ESP8266 tutorial, because these two Espressif chips are very similar when it comes to using MicroPython on them. The ESP8266 tutorial is found at MicroPython tutorial for ESP8266 (but skip the Introduction section).

Troubleshooting installation problems

If you experience problems during flashing or with running firmware immediately after it, here are troubleshooting recommendations:

  • Be aware of and try to exclude hardware problems. There are 2 common problems: bad power source quality, and worn-out/defective FlashROM. Speaking of power source, not just raw amperage is important, but also low ripple and noise/EMI in general. The most reliable and convenient power source is a USB port.
  • The flashing instructions above use flashing speed of 460800 baud, which is good compromise between speed and stability. However, depending on your module/board, USB-UART convertor, cables, host OS, etc., the above baud rate may be too high and lead to errors. Try a more common 115200 baud rate instead in such cases.
  • To catch incorrect flash content (e.g. from a defective sector on a chip), add --verify switch to the commands above.
  • If you still experience problems with flashing the firmware please refer to esptool.py project page, https://github.com/espressif/esptool for additional documentation and a bug tracker where you can report problems.
  • If you are able to flash the firmware but the --verify option returns errors even after multiple retries the you may have a defective FlashROM chip.