Which board to buy

Firmware

1.2.2 on the installer

Chip

ESP32-WROOM-32E, 4 MB flash

Looks like

Two rows of pins and a USB socket

Speed

Fast (expected, not yet measured)

Screen

none

Card slot

none on the board: a card module wires to four pins

Ethernet

no

Skins

no: skins need a screen

Lights

a drive light and a strip of pixels, wired to spare pins

Best for

the cheapest board that runs it all, with a card wired on

Everything the firmware does, on every board

The reference board: every release so far was built and tested on it. Card or no card, it installs one image, from the ESP32 dev board (Base) choice on the installer. It is built round the ESP32-WROOM-32E, with 4 MB of flash and a USB-serial chip by its socket, and most boards sold as "ESP32 DevKit" or "ESP32-WROOM-32" look like it: a long board with a row of pins down each side, the module's metal can at one end with its antenna past the edge, and the USB socket between two buttons at the other.

• What it does with no card: chat, mail, accounts, the information pages and a directory listing, straight from the installer.
• What needs a card: file areas, forums, backups kept on the card, and the photos on a camera board. With no card those are not offered at all. The dev board with a card is the next entry.
• What was tested: installing from this site, setting the Wi-Fi from the browser, the first-call setup, and callers from PuTTY, SyncTERM and a Commodore 64 through a TeensyROM.
• How many at once: ten people, plus a busy line that tells the eleventh to try again later, and a hidden line for the sysopThe system operator: the host who runs a board, sets its rules and looks after it., the host. Technical details: 520 KB of SRAM and 4 MB of flash, no PSRAM, and Bluetooth switched off.
• Power: the USB port you installed it from, a phone charger, or 3V3 on a bench supply. It draws about a tenth of an amp while it waits, because the firmware keeps the radio listening rather than letting it doze, and a little under 400 mA for the instant the radio transmits, so anything that can deliver 500 mA is comfortable.
• What you can add: an SD card, below, and a drive light and a strip of pixels for a case, on the lights page.

Firmware

1.2.2 on the installer. The same image as the bare board: choose ESP32 dev board (Base) on the installer.

Chip

ESP32-WROOM-32E, 4 MB flash, and a micro SD card module

Looks like

The dev board with a card module wired beside it

Speed

Fast (expected, not yet measured)

Screen

none

Card slot

a micro SD card module, wired to four pins

Ethernet

no

Skins

no: skins need a screen

Lights

a drive light and a strip of pixels, wired to spare pins

Best for

everything the BBS does, for about $17

Everything the firmware does, on every board

The same dev board with a micro SD card module wired to it, which is how every release so far was tested. It installs the same image, from the same ESP32 dev board (Base) choice on the installer: the card is what switches the rest of the board on.

• What it does: everything the BBS does. File areas callers can download from and upload to, forums, screens of your own, and from firmware 1.1.0 the board's backups kept on the card, on top of everything the bare board does.
• What it holds: a card of up to 32 GB is a library on one board: a lifetime of disk images, text files and utilities for the machines that call in, every one a download by XMODEM or YMODEM.
• What it costs: about $17 with the card module and jumper wires, and about half an hour the first time, most of it wiring the card. A micro SD card of 32 GB or smaller is extra.
• The wiring: four signal wires plus power, from the module to the board's pins. The diagram, the pins, and what to do if the card will not mount are on the SD card page.

Firmware

1.2.2 (S3 1.1.9) on the installer

Chip

ESP32-S3R8, 16 MB flash, 8 MB PSRAM

Looks like

A USB stick with a colour screen

Speed

Fastest (expected, not yet measured)

SSH

yes, encrypted connections beside telnet

Screen

1.47 inch colour, 172 by 320, no touch

Card slot

a TF (micro SD) slot on the board

Ethernet

no

Skins

the status screen, or any skin drawn for its size

Lights

its RGB LED is the drive light, from the first start

Best for

the smallest board with a screen, on a USB stick

Everything the firmware does, on every board

The ESP32-S3 board, and exactly this one: a USB stick with an ESP32-S3 on it and a small colour screen, the second board the firmware runs on. Tested on Rob's bench on 24 September 2026 with a 1.1.0 preview: it boots, answers telnet, mounts its SD card, shows the board's figures on its screen, and runs the drive light on its own LED.

What it adds over the ESP32 dev board:

• A screen that shows the board's figures. Its name and the time, callers on out of how many lines, the address to dial, how long it has been up, the card's free space, and the last login, logoff or page.
• A drive light already fitted. The RGB LED on the board is the drive light, on from the first start.
• A card slot on the board. A TF (micro SD) card goes straight in.
• A new photo, the moment it is filed. From firmware 1.2.1 a picture from a camera sat takes the screen for a minute, whole and uncropped, captioned with the camera, who took it and when. A newer one replaces it; a minute after the last, the status screen comes back.
• SSHAn encrypted way of connecting to a board, beside telnet: what you type is scrambled on the way, so only the board can read it., encrypted connections beside telnet, as on every S3 board from firmware 1.1.2.
• More memory: 16 MB of flash and 8 MB of PSRAM, against the dev board's 4 MB of flash and none.

No wiring, and none of the build pages: the SD card page and the lights page are for the dev board. The card goes in the slot, the drive light is already there, and the screen draws the strip's lamps whether or not a strip is wired.

It still has ten caller lines, the same as the dev board. The limit is the network stack's sixteen sockets, and that does not move with the chip.

It carries two version numbers, the core every board shares and its own, and shows them together, for example 1.1.0 (S3 1.0.0). The core number is what the directory compares when it marks a board as behind.

Only this board. The ESP32-S3-LCD-1.47B, with a USB-C socket, moves a pin and is not this build, and neither is any other ESP32-S3 board. The installer reads the chip, not the board, so it would write this image onto any S3: the picture is the check.

It has no USB-serial chip, so it goes on a little differently: BOOT and RESET pressed by hand, in three steps on the installer page.

Firmware

1.2.2 (MF35 1.1.7) on the installer

Chip

ESP32-S3-WROOM-1 N16R2, 16 MB flash, 2 MB PSRAM

Looks like

A 3.5 inch touch screen on a board with two USB-C sockets

Speed

Fastest (expected, not yet measured)

SSH

yes, encrypted connections beside telnet

Screen

3.5 inch, 480 by 320, on a parallel bus; its touch is not used yet

Card slot

a micro SD slot on the board

Ethernet

no

Skins

yes: the five stock skins are drawn for its screen

Lights

no LED the firmware can drive

Best for

a big status screen and the stock skins, installed with no buttons to press

Everything the firmware does, on every board

A board built round a 3.5 inch touch screen, made by Makerfabs, who sell it as the MaTouch ESP32-S3 Parallel TFT with Touch 3.5". It runs on Rob's bench, screen and card included, and it is on the installer, in the full release from firmware 1.2.0.

Check the back of the board: this build is for v1.0. The version is printed on the back, in the white lettering on the circuit board. The one Makerfabs sell today is v2.0, which has its own build and its own choice in the installer. The two are the same board from the front, so the back is the only check, and the installer cannot make it: every ESP32-S3 board reads the same, and the wrong image does not start. If that happens, install again with the right choice.

The Parallel TFT, not the SPI TFT. Makerfabs also sell an ESP32-S3 SPI TFT with Touch 3.5", the same size of screen on a board that looks much the same. Its screen is wired a different way, and it is not supported. The name of the one to buy says Parallel.

What it adds:

• A big status screen. 480 by 320, with room for every caller line on the board at once: who is on, what each caller is doing, for how long, and on which terminal. Beside them, the calls and the latest events, the traffic with a graph of the last ten minutes, and the board's free memory and how long it has been up.
• No lag from the screen. It is wired to the chip by a 16-bit parallel bus, and the board sends it a strip at a time in the background, so drawing it never holds up a caller.
• 16 MB of flash and a micro SD card slot on the board.
• Two Grove-style sockets, which Makerfabs call Mabee: one for I2C parts, and one for two plain pins, where the serial bridge goes, off until you switch it on.
• Skins, from firmware 1.2.0. The screen can dress up as a machine from another decade, with its lamps lit for real: see skins.
• A new photo, the moment it is filed. From firmware 1.2.1 a picture from a camera sat takes the screen for a minute, whole and uncropped, captioned with the camera, who took it and when. A newer one replaces it; a minute after the last, the status screen comes back.
• A touch screen, whose touch the firmware does not use yet.

What it costs you:

• Less PSRAM than the Waveshare. v1.0 has 2 MB, against 8 MB. Everything runs on it, SSHAn encrypted way of connecting to a board, beside telnet: what you type is scrambled on the way, so only the board can read it. included from firmware 1.1.2: up to ten encrypted callers at once from firmware 1.2.2, where it was eight, and the board works out how many that memory will hold as each one connects rather than promising a number it cannot keep.
• No activity LED. Its one light is the power LED, which is wired so no firmware can switch it. The address to dial is on its screen.
• One of its two USB-C sockets installs. Use the one marked USB-TTL. It goes through a USB-serial chip, a CP2104, which puts the board into its flashing mode by itself, so there are no buttons to press. The one marked USB is the chip's own, and the installer does not use it.

Like every board here, it has ten caller lines.

Where to buy one. Makerfabs sell it from their own shop, and it is not on Amazon. That link is not an affiliate link.

What their shop sells now is v2.0, so a board bought today is most likely that one, which has its own build. Read the back of the board when it arrives and pick the matching choice in the installer.

A similar board, the Elecrow ESP Terminal 3.5", is being looked at. It is not supported yet: there is no build for it, and it is not on the installer.

Firmware

1.2.2 (MF35V2 1.0.4) on the installer

Chip

ESP32-S3-WROOM-1 N16R8, 16 MB flash, 8 MB PSRAM

Looks like

A 3.5 inch touch screen on a board with two USB-C sockets

SSH

yes, encrypted connections beside telnet

Screen

3.5 inch touch, 480 by 320, on a parallel bus

Card slot

a micro SD slot on the board

Ethernet

no

Skins

yes: the five stock skins are drawn for its screen

Lights

no LED the firmware can drive

Best for

the Makerfabs screen as they sell it today, with 8 MB of PSRAM and touch

Everything the firmware does, on every board

The revision of the Makerfabs 3.5 inch board that they sell today, so this is the one a board bought now is most likely to be. It runs on Rob's bench, screen, touch and card included, and it is on the installer.

Check the back of the board: this build is for v2.0. The version is printed on the back, in the white lettering on the circuit board. The earlier v1.0 has its own build and its own choice in the installer. The two are the same board from the front, which is why the picture above is the same, and the installer cannot tell any ESP32-S3 board from another: the wrong image does not start. If that happens, install again with the right choice.

The Parallel TFT, not the SPI TFT. Makerfabs also sell an ESP32-S3 SPI TFT with Touch 3.5", the same size of screen on a board that looks much the same. Its screen is wired a different way, and it is not supported. The name of the one to buy says Parallel.

What it adds, over the v1.0:

• 8 MB of PSRAM in place of the v1.0's 2 MB, which is what the encrypted SSHAn encrypted way of connecting to a board, beside telnet: what you type is scrambled on the way, so only the board can read it. callers and the screen's own memory come out of. Ten of them at once from firmware 1.2.2, where it was eight.
• Touch that the board reads. A tap wakes the screen and turns the header's page, and the screen can be set to go dark on its own.
• The same as the v1.0 otherwise: the 480 by 320 status screen on its 16-bit parallel bus, skins, the card slot, 16 MB of flash and ten caller lines.

What it costs you:

• Its two Mabee sockets are spoken for, where the v1.0's are free. The one for two plain pins is wired to the chip's own USB, which is this board's console, and the I2C one to the touch controller, so the board refuses both by name and the serial bridge has no pins as shipped. A sysop can still give the bridge other pins in CONFIG serial.
• No activity LED. Its one light is the power LED, which is wired so no firmware can switch it. The address to dial is on its screen.
• The other USB-C socket installs this one. Use the one marked USB-NATIVE, the chip's own: that is where the board answers the installer and where Update my board recognises it. The socket marked USB-TTL will flash it but says nothing back. Both sockets say USB something on this revision, where the v1.0's are USB-TTL and USB, and on the v1.0 it is the other way round: there, USB-TTL is the one to use.

Board features

What the firmware draws on the glass. Landscape, with the USB edge at the bottom.

• A header with the board's name and the time. A tap turns its page, and it holds that page for ten seconds.
• A load line under the header: a dot runs a lap and paints the trail behind it with how hard the board is working, blue when it is idle through green to yellow, and red for a moment whenever something takes too long. One lap is the history.
• A row of glyphs beside the clock: the card, and a little drive whose light does what the board's drive light does.
• Every caller line at once: who is on, what they are doing, for how long and on which terminal, with the calls, the latest events, the traffic graph and the free memory under them.
• A new photo, the moment it is filed. From firmware 1.2.1 a picture from a camera sat takes the screen for a minute, whole and uncropped, captioned with the camera, who took it and when. A newer one replaces it; a minute after the last, the status screen comes back.
• Skins: the screen can dress up as a machine from another decade, with its lamps lit for real.
• Sleep, if you want it. The screen can go dark on its own, and a tap wakes it.

Where to buy one. Makerfabs sell it from their own shop, and it is not on Amazon. That link is not an affiliate link. Their wiki has the board's own documentation, the revisions included.

Firmware

1.2.2 (WS43B 1.0.7) on the installer

Chip

ESP32-S3-WROOM-1 N16R8, 16 MB flash, 8 MB PSRAM

Looks like

A 4.3 inch touch screen in a case

SSH

yes, encrypted connections beside telnet

Screen

4.3 inch touch, 800 by 480, in a case

Card slot

a TF (micro SD) slot on the board

Ethernet

no

Skins

the status screen, or any skin drawn for its size

Lights

no activity LED; a bar of lamps along the screen instead

Best for

the best-looking display, readable across a desk

Everything the firmware does, on every board

Waveshare's "Development Board B": a 4.3 inch touch screen in a case, round an ESP32-S3. It runs on Rob's bench, and it is on the installer, in the full release from firmware 1.2.0.

What it adds:

• The biggest status screen yet, 800 by 480, readable across a desk.
• Touch. A tap on the glass turns the header's page, or wakes a screen that went to sleep.
• A card slot on the board. A TF (micro SD) card goes straight in.
• An RS485 port, where the serial bridge goes, off until you switch it on.
• SSHAn encrypted way of connecting to a board, beside telnet: what you type is scrambled on the way, so only the board can read it., encrypted connections beside telnet, as on every S3 board.
• 16 MB of flash and 8 MB of PSRAM.

What it costs you:

• No activity LED, and no BOOT button recovery. The board uses every pin it has for the screen and its ports, and the BOOT key is one of the screen's own data lines, so on this one no button puts a forgotten sysop password back or opens the backup window, and neither does the factory reset. BACKUP SD still saves a backup to the card, and installing is not affected.
• The chip's own USB, as on the Waveshare stick: installing may need BOOT and RESET pressed by hand.

Board features

What the firmware draws on the glass, in words for now; a labelled picture comes once the screen's layout is final.

• A header with the board's name in a large face. A tap turns its page, and it stays on that page for ten seconds.
• Two columns of callers, one row each: who is on and what they are doing. A quiet board says nobody on.
• A band across the screen while the board is shutting down or closed.
• The system row: memory free, the most callers at once, and the chip's temperature.
• A light bar of square lamps along the bottom, one a line: a caller's line lit in the colour of their rank, a free line a dim blue that flickers with traffic, and the drive light's lamp beside them.
• A new photo, the moment it is filed. From firmware 1.2.1 a picture from a camera sat takes the screen for a minute, whole and uncropped, captioned with the camera, who took it and when. A newer one replaces it; a minute after the last, the status screen comes back.
• Sleep, if you want it. The screen can go dark on its own, and a tap wakes it.

Firmware

1.2.2 (WS2 1.0.8) on the installer

Chip

ESP32-S3R8, 16 MB flash, 8 MB PSRAM

Camera

OV5640, 5 MP, sold with the board

Looks like

A small board with a 2 inch touch screen and a camera on top

SSH

yes, encrypted connections beside telnet

Screen

2 inch touch, 240 by 320

Card slot

a TF (micro SD) slot on the board

Ethernet

no

Skins

the status screen, or any skin drawn for its size

Lights

no activity LED; lamps along the screen instead

Best for

a screen and a camera on one small board

Everything the firmware does, on every board

A small board with a 2 inch touch screen, a camera and a card slot, round an ESP32-S3. It runs on Rob's bench, and it is on the installer, in the full release from firmware 1.2.0.

What it adds:

• A screen and a camera on one small board. The camera it is sold with, an OV5640, takes the board's photos: a caller types SNAPSHOT, and the pictures go in the Photos and Timelapse file areas, as on the other camera boards.
• Touch. A tap turns the screen's header, or wakes a screen that went to sleep.
• A card slot on the board. A TF (micro SD) card goes straight in.
• SSHAn encrypted way of connecting to a board, beside telnet: what you type is scrambled on the way, so only the board can read it., as on every S3 board, and 16 MB of flash and 8 MB of PSRAM.

What it costs you:

• No activity LED. Its two lights are the battery charger's and the power light, and no firmware can switch either.
• Almost every pin is spoken for. The camera, the screen, the card, the touch controller and the battery sense take all but a few, so the serial bridge has no pins as shipped; a sysop can give it two of the ones left in CONFIG serial. The screen and the card slot also share one set of wires, which the board sorts out between them by itself.
• The chip's own USB, as on the Waveshare stick: installing may need BOOT and RESET pressed by hand.

Board features

What the firmware draws on the glass, in words for now; a labelled picture comes once the screen's layout is final.

• The status panel at 240 wide: the board's name and the time, the address to dial, and callers on out of how many lines.
• The chip's temperature, and a camera glyph for the camera.
• Recent events, the snaps among them.
• The lamps of the light bar along the bottom.
• A new photo, the moment it is filed. From firmware 1.2.1 a picture from its own camera or from a camera sat takes the screen for a minute, whole and uncropped, captioned with the camera, who took it and when. A newer one replaces it; a minute after the last, the status screen comes back.
• Sleep, if you want it. The screen can go dark on its own, and a tap wakes it.

Firmware

1.2.2 (ETH 1.0.8) on the installer

Chip

ESP32-S3R8, 16 MB flash, 8 MB PSRAM

Camera

OV5640 on the board tested; an OV2640 fits too

Looks like

A board with an Ethernet socket and a camera connector

Connection

Wired Ethernet, 10/100: the most stable connection, with Wi-Fi as the fallback

SSH

yes, encrypted connections beside telnet

Screen

none

Card slot

a micro SD slot on the board

Ethernet

yes, 10/100, with Wi-Fi as the fallback

Skins

no: skins need a screen

Lights

its colour LED is the drive light, from the first start

Best for

the most stable connection: a board on the wire

Everything the firmware does, on every board

An ESP32-S3 board with a wired Ethernet socket, a camera connector and a card slot. It runs on Rob's bench, and it is on the installer, in the full release from firmware 1.2.0.

What it adds:

• Wired Ethernet: the most stable connection a board can have. It takes its address over the cable and answers there: telnet, SSH, the directory listing and the clock. Wi-Fi stays set up as the fallback, and joins if the cable has no address 10 seconds after the board starts, or 3 seconds after it loses one. When the cable comes back, Wi-Fi stands down again. Callers on the connection that went away are dropped, and call again on the other.
• Wi-Fi is still set up. The cable does not replace it: it is the fallback, and sats (camera sats, door sats) talk over the Wi-Fi radio. In firmware 1.2.0 a board on the cable cannot pair sats yet; from 1.2.1 it joins Wi-Fi beside the cable, so sats work, and callers still come in over the wire.
• A camera. The one on the board tested is an OV5640, and an OV2640 fits too. A caller types SNAPSHOT, and the pictures go in the Photos and Timelapse file areas, as on the other camera boards.
• A card slot on the board, and a drive light already fitted: its colour LED is the drive light, on from the first start.
• SSHAn encrypted way of connecting to a board, beside telnet: what you type is scrambled on the way, so only the board can read it., as on every S3 board, and 16 MB of flash and 8 MB of PSRAM.

What it costs you:

• No screen. The address to dial is in your router's list of devices, or at the end of installing, under Telnet details.
• The fall back to Wi-Fi when the cable is pulled has not yet been tried on the bench. The rest has: the cable, telnet and SSH, the card and the camera.
• The chip's own USB, as on the Waveshare stick: installing may need BOOT and RESET pressed by hand.

Firmware

1.2.2 (G4848 1.0.5) on the installer

Chip

ESP32-S3-WROOM-1 N16R8, 16 MB flash, 8 MB PSRAM

Looks like

A square 4 inch touch screen in a wall-box case

SSH

yes, encrypted connections beside telnet

Screen

4 inch square touch, 480 by 480, in a wall-box case

Card slot

a TF (micro SD) slot on the board

Ethernet

no

Skins

yes: a skin drawn for an oblong screen is framed in the middle of the square

Lights

no activity LED; a bar of lamps along the screen instead

Best for

a square screen on a wall, in a case, with nothing to wire

Everything the firmware does, on every board

A 4 inch square touch screen in a wall-box case, round an ESP32-S3, and the only square screen the firmware draws: it has a layout of its own, where every other board's is oblong. It runs on Rob's bench, screen, touch and card included, and it is on the installer.

What it adds:

• A square 480 by 480 screen, which the firmware draws a layout of its own for: every caller line across the full width, with how many minutes each call has left, and the deck of calls, events and traffic under it.
• Touch. A tap wakes the screen and turns the header's page.
• A screen that dims. Its backlight is set as a percentage, 60 as shipped, and it fades up rather than snapping on.
• A card slot on the board. A TF (micro SD) card goes straight in.
• No buttons to press when you install it. Its one USB-C socket goes through a CH340, which puts the board into its flashing mode by itself, as the ESP32 dev board's does.
• SSHAn encrypted way of connecting to a board, beside telnet: what you type is scrambled on the way, so only the board can read it., as on every S3 board, and 16 MB of flash and 8 MB of PSRAM.

What it costs you:

• No activity LED, and no BOOT button recovery. The screen's bus uses the pin other boards give their BOOT button, so on this one no button puts a forgotten sysop password back or opens the backup window, and neither does the factory reset. BACKUP SD still saves a backup to the card, and installing is not affected.
• An ordinary SD card, not an old one. A 1 GB card of the oldest kind (SDSC) would not mount on the bench; a normal SDHC card, the sort sold today, mounts.
• No serial bridge as shipped. Its serial port is the console, and the three spare pins go to a connector inside the case that no published pinout names, so the bridge has no pins until a sysop traces them and sets them in CONFIG serial.
• A case you cannot read the back of. The board arrives in its wall-box case, so the silkscreen is hidden: the picture, the square screen and the single USB-C socket are how you know it.

Board features

What the firmware draws on the square glass.

• A header with the board's name in a large face and the time. A tap turns its page, and it holds that page for ten seconds.
• A load line under the header: a dot runs a lap and paints the trail behind it with how hard the board is working, blue when it is idle through green to yellow, and red, drawn thicker, for a moment whenever something takes too long. One lap is the history.
• A row of glyphs beside the clock: the card, and a little drive whose light does what the board's drive light does.
• The caller board across the full width: each line's handle in full, what that caller is doing, and a LEFT column with the minutes the call has left, warm at five and red at one.
• The deck under it: the calls and the latest events on one side; the traffic, a fifteen-minute sweep and six cells including the chip's temperature on the other.
• A ring takes the whole header, in the large face, so it reads across a room.
• Closed or shutting down: every free line says so, and the band counts a shutdown down.
• A light bar along the foot, one lamp a caller line in the colour of their rank, a free line a dim blue that flickers with real traffic.
• A new photo, the moment it is filed. From firmware 1.2.1 a picture from a camera sat takes the screen for a minute, whole and uncropped, with its caption under it like a label on a print. A newer one replaces it; a minute after the last, the status screen comes back.
• Skins: a screen drawn for an oblong glass is shown framed in the middle of the square, between black bands.
• Sleep, if you want it. The screen can go dark on its own, and a tap wakes it.

Where to buy one. The board on the bench is sold on Amazon as the AITRIP ESP32-S3 4.0 inch. The design is Guition's, and several sellers put their own name on it.

Only the AITRIP has been tested here. By their own listings these look like the same design and should run the same build, but nobody here has had one in their hands, so treat them as unverified: DORHEA's 4 inch, which adds a temperature and humidity sensor the firmware does not read, and the generic 4 inch five-point listings. If one of them turns out to be wired differently, the image will not start, and nothing is harmed by trying.

Not every "4 inch ESP32-S3 smart panel" is this board. The ones sold as an "AI ESP32-S3 Smart 86 Box" have a power-management chip the board can talk to, a motion sensor, a real-time clock and audio, none of which this design has: that is a different board and this build is not for it. Neither is Waveshare's own 4 inch 480 by 480 board, which is its own design. "86 box" is only the size of the wall box the case fits.

Firmware

1.2.2 (FNCAM 1.0.10) on the installer

Chip

ESP32-WROVER-E, 4 MB flash, 8 MB PSRAM

Camera

varies by batch: OV2640, or a GC0308 at 640x480 as Rob's came

Looks like

A camera on a ribbon, a card slot and a USB-C socket

Speed

Faster (expected, not yet measured)

Screen

none

Card slot

a micro SD slot, with a card in the box

Ethernet

no

Skins

no: skins need a screen

Lights

no free LED: a pixel goes on a spare pin

Best for

the easiest camera board: one board and a USB-C socket

Everything the firmware does, on every board

Freenove's camera kit, FNK0060, and the first board with a camera on it to go on the installer. Tested on Rob's bench in September 2026 with the 1.1.0 development builds: the board, its SD card and its camera, with callers taking photos and downloading them.

Same chip as the dev board. The installer reads the chip, not the board, so it cannot tell the two apart: the picture is the check. The steps for this board say what else is different about installing it.

• What it has: an ESP32-WROVER-E with 4 MB of flash and 8 MB of PSRAM, a camera on a ribbon, a micro SD slot with a card in the box, a USB-C socket with a CH340 USB-serial chip beside it.
• The camera varies between batches. Freenove's documents name an OV2640, and Rob's kit came with a GalaxyCore GC0308 instead: 0.3 megapixels, 640x480 at most, and no JPEG encoder of its own, so the board encodes each photo itself, which takes a few seconds. The firmware works with either, and the CAMERA command names the one it found.
• No wiring. The card goes in the slot. There is no free light on the board (its one LED shares a pin with the card), so a drive light or a photo flash is a pixel you add on a spare pin, as on the dev board.
• Three pins to spare, GPIO 13, 32 and 33. The camera and the card use nearly every other pin on the board.
• The camera needs the card. Photos are kept on it.

The camera can be swapped. It plugs into a 24-pin ribbon socket, and an OV2640 module fits it in place of a GC0308: Rob's now carries the one from an ESP32-CAM. From firmware 1.1.1 the board offers the photo sizes of the camera it finds, so with an OV2640 it takes photos up to 1600x1200, and with a GC0308 up to 640x480 as before.

Better photos in firmware 1.1.1, on either camera. The installer offers it first, with 1.1.0 beside it, and its version line says whether 1.1.1 is still a preview, an early build out for testing.

• Colour and exposure are fixed. On an OV2640, 1.1.0 switched off the camera's colour balance, which gave photos a strong green cast. And 1.1.0 kept the first picture before the exposure had settled, which washed photos out. 1.1.1 lets both settle before the photo it keeps.
• Auto levels, a new setting, on as shipped, which evens out a flat or washed-out photo on any camera.
• Better JPEG quality from an OV2640, and the watermark no longer costs the photo any detail.

Firmware

1.2.2 (ESPCAM 1.0.7) on the installer

Chip

ESP32-D0WDQ6, 4 MB flash, 8 MB PSRAM (4 MB usable)

Camera

OV2640, 2 MP, photos up to 1600x1200

Looks like

A small camera board seated on a USB programmer board

Speed

Faster (expected, not yet measured)

Screen

none

Card slot

a micro SD slot, taken out to install

Ethernet

no

Skins

no: skins need a screen

Lights

the red LED is the activity light; the white one is the camera's flash

Best for

the best camera for the money

Everything the firmware does, on every board

The ESP32-CAM, a small board first made by AI-Thinker and now sold under many names; Rob's are an Aideepen two-pack. Tested on Rob's bench in September 2026: the board, its SD card and its camera, taking photos at full size. It is on the installer.

Take the SD card out to install it. Before you install or update, take the micro SD card out of its slot. When the installer is done, unplug the board, put the card back, and plug it in again. With a card in, the board starts up as usual instead of taking the new software. The steps for this board say why, and what you see if the card is still in.

Its camera is better than the one Rob's Freenove came with: a genuine OmniVision OV2640, 2 megapixelsA million pixels, the dots a photo is made of. A 2 megapixel photo is about 1600 dots across and 1200 down., taking photos of 1600x1200, where the Freenove's GC0308 stops at 640x480. On both boards the camera is a module on a ribbon, so it can be swapped for another.

• What it has: an ESP32-D0WDQ6 with 4 MB of flash and 8 MB of PSRAMA second memory chip beside the processor: slower than the chip's own memory, and far larger., of which the chip can use 4 MB; a camera on a ribbon; a micro SD slot; a white LED on the front and a small red one on the back.
• Its programmer board. The ESP32-CAM has no USB socket of its own. It sits on an ESP32-CAM-MB, a second board with a micro USB socket and a CH340 USB-serial chip, which is how it connects to a computer and is installed. It puts the board into its flashing mode by itself, so there are no buttons to press. The two come together.
• The camera needs the card. Photos are kept on it. A 32 GB card worked on Rob's; the board runs the slot in SPI mode.
• The white LED is the camera's flash. It is off as shipped: turn it on with the Flash setting in CONFIG camera. It is very bright, and it gets hot if it is left on.
• The red LED is the activity light. It blinks with traffic, like the dev board's.
• No BOOT button recovery. The camera's clock uses the pin other boards give their BOOT button, so on this one no button puts a forgotten sysop password back or opens the backup window. BACKUP SD still saves a backup to the card, and installing is not affected.
• No pins to spare. The camera, the card and the memory use nearly every pin, so this board has no lights and no serial bridge.

Firmware

coming soon to the installer; on order, and tested when it arrives

Chip

ESP32-S3 N16R8, 16 MB flash, 8 MB PSRAM

Camera

OV3660, 3 MP

Looks like

A camera, two USB-C sockets and an antenna lead

Speed

Fastest (expected, not yet measured)

Everything the firmware does, on every board

Coming soon. A board sold as the ESP32-S3-CAM: an ESP32-S3 N16R8, with 16 MB of flash and 8 MB of PSRAM, an OV3660 camera of 3 megapixels, two USB-C sockets and a lead for an external antenna. Rob's is on order, and it will be tested when it arrives.

Boards sold under that name are made by several companies, and they are not all the same board: the pins, the lights and the USB wiring differ. The build will be for the one that was tested, taken from its own schematic, and this section will say which it is once it has run. Until then, buying one to run this firmware is buying ahead of the testing.

As an ESP32-S3 board it gets SSHAn encrypted way of connecting to a board, beside telnet: what you type is scrambled on the way, so only the board can read it., encrypted connections beside telnet, like every S3 board from firmware 1.1.2, once it has a build of its own.