As we all know, building production-ready firmware is not an easy task. Along with the basic functionality of the product, one also needs to consider building smartphone applications and integrating cloud platforms.

To make things easier, Espressif has just released ESP-Jumpstart, providing the optimal solution to getting started with product development. ESP-Jumpstart is a complete guide for developers, which helps them quickly achieve the conversion of their ideas into products.

ESP-Jumpstart is based on Espressif’s IoT Development Framework, ESP-IDF, and discusses all the necessary steps and best practices for product development in a simple, well-structured and user-friendly way. Becoming familiar with the process of building ESP32-based products has never been easier!

The ESP-Jumpstart development framework includes the following chapters:

• Driver APIs for ESP32
• Wi-Fi Connection
• Network Configuration
• Remote Control (Cloud)
• Over-the-Air (OTA) Firmware Updates
• Manufacturing
• Security Considerations

ESP-Jumpstart allows users to easily modify the code in the application layer and adjust it to their own product and the peripheral drivers they want to use. This can significantly reduce the time usually required to convert a simple idea into an actual product that is ready for mass production. With ESP-Jumpstart, users can start product development as systematically, quickly and economically as possible.

ESP-Jumpstart provides the “Smart Power Outlet” as a development example which also shows how easy it is to use the guide.

The Smart Power Outlet firmware assumes that the device has one input push-button and one GPIO output. It implements the following functionality:

• Using the push-button to physically toggle the output;
• Allowing the end-user to configure their Wi-Fi network through smartphone applications (iOS/Android);
• Allowing remote control of the output over Cloud;
• Implementing over-the-air (OTA) firmware upgrades;
• Resetting to factory settings by long-pressing the push-button.

Once users become familiar with ESP-Jumpstart, building their production firmware is just a matter of replacing the power-outlet’s device driver with their own device driver (e.g. smart lighting,  smart appliances, etc.).

To get started, users also need to have:

• An ESP32 development kit, such as ESP32-DevKit-C. However, developers can also use any other ESP32 development board if they already have one.
• A Development host setup (Windows, Linux or Mac).

For further details, users can find ESP-Jumpstart in its entirety here. An ESP8266 variant is also available here.