Espressif Promotes AWS IoT LTS for ESP32 to Stable, Releases Reference Example for ESP32-C3

Now broken out into individual components, Espressif's stable AWS IoT libraries are easier than ever to integrate into your ESP32 projects.

Gareth Halfacree
2 years ago β€’ Internet of Things

Espressif has officially promoted its AWS IoT LTS libraries for the ESP32 family of devices from beta to stable, and to celebrate has released a reference example for AWS IoT on the ESP32-C3 RISC-V microcontroller.

"We had announced the availability of AWS IoT LTS libraries for ESP32 in beta in [our] esp-aws-iot repository in August, 2021. Since then, many of our customers and independent developers have been using these libraries that we have ported and writing applications based on the examples," Espressif's Dhaval Gujar explains. "[Now] we are pleased to announce the stable release of esp-aws-iot on GitHub and a reference example for the ESP32-C3 developed in collaboration with the AWS team."

The reference example, now provided alongside the earlier standalone examples, is designed to more closely mimic something that would actually be put into production than earlier efforts. Supporting Espressif's Unified Provisioning, which allows a smartphone app to feed Wi-Fi credentials and other data to the microcontroller, the sample project makes use of three key AWS IoT features: AWS IoT OTA over MQQT for over-the-air updates, subscription, publishing, reception, and unsubscription of topics on AWS IoT Core, and a topic-based AWS IoT Core task that publishes and receives temperature sensor data as well as accepting a packet to enable or disable an LED.

The new sample also showcases the use of the ESP32-C3's Digital Signature Peripheral hardware root-of-trust. "This ensures that the device identity remains protected using hardware security," Gujar explains. "Additionally, the guide provides steps for production security considerations like enabling Flash Encryption and Secure Boot which are now de-facto features in any secure connected device."

There's a final bonus feature to be found in the company's latest release, too: Every supported AWS IoT library is now made available as a standalone ESP-IDF component, making it easy to integrate particular features. "Each library comes with its own port layer and configuration," Gujar adds, "that is easy to manage for the application."

The new code is available on Espressif's GitHub repository now under the permissive Apache 2.0 license, and is compatible with ESP-IDF v4.3 and v4.4. For those working with an ESP32-C3, meanwhile, the FreeRTOS repository has a guide to getting started with the new reference example.

Gareth Halfacree
Freelance journalist, technical author, hacker, tinkerer, erstwhile sysadmin. For hire: freelance@halfacree.co.uk.
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