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Programming the ESP32

After a successful installation of the Arduino IDE it's necessary to install the ESP32 as development board inside the Arduino IDE. For this you have to do the following two steps:

  1. Register a new board manager
  2. Install the extension for ESP32

Note

The communication between the host computer and the development board is done by USB. The used USB chipset is a Silicon Labs CP210x. It should be automatically recognized by the operation system. If there is no automatic recognition install the driver manually. The link to the driver page is here

Register a new board manager

Start the Arduino IDE, open the Preferences window with File > Preferences in the menu bar.

IDE preferences
Open Preferences windows select preferences

The Preferences window has two tabs:

  • Settings
  • Network
IDE Settings
Preferences window select Additional Boards Manager URLs

It's not necessary to change the settings inside the Network tab. But a change in the tab Settings is necessary. Add an entry to the Additional Boards Manager URLs:

board_manager_urls

You could directly paste the following url into the input field or open a separate window:

1
https://dl.espressif.com/dl/package_esp32_index.json
IDE Enter additional URLs
board_manager_urls insert url

Install the extension for ESP32

Now you can install the development extension for the ESP32 at the Arduino IDE. Go to Tools > Board > Boards Manager...

IDE Boards Manager
menu_boards_manager select Boards Manager

Use the search input file. Search for esp32 and select Install.

IDE Boards
select install

After the install a section ESP 32 in the menu Tools > Board should occur.

IDE Boards
esp32_menu_entry select Boards

Now select the ESP32 Dev Module in Tools -> Board.

IDE ESP32 Dev Module
select_board select ESP32 Dev Module