Published May 14, 2026, 11:00 AM EDT I’m Adam Conway, an Irish technology fanatic with a BSc in Computer Science and I'm XDA’s Lead Technical Editor. My Bachelor’s thesis was conducted on the viability of benchmarking the non-functional elements of Android apps and smartphones such as performance, and I’ve been working in the tech industry in some way or another since 2017. In my spare time, you’ll probably find me playing Counter-Strike or VALORANT, and you can reach out to me at  adam@xda-developers.com , on Twitter as @AdamConwayIE , on Instagram as AdamConwayIE , or u/AdamConwayIE on Reddit. Most ESP32 projects I see treat the chip as an island that boots, joins a Wi-Fi network, and talks to Home Assistant. The chip is merely treated as a thing that produces data for something else to consume, and it works fine that way. It's the entire reason ESPHome exists, and it's exactly the kind of thing that these boards are actually for.…