Espressif ESP32-S31
Shares rank 8 of 24 microcontrollers by recommenders
RISC-V successor to the ESP32-S3 with faster wireless, more memory and gigabit Ethernet, seen as strong value. Critics point to missing features and incomplete documentation.
16 people recommended Espressif ESP32-S31 in Hacker News comments, 8 had mixed feelings and 9 criticized it, November 2025 to October 2026.
10 of the 16 people who recommend it commented in one thread, “ESP32-S31”.
Summary written by Claude from 38 comments.
33 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 16
- mixed feelings
- 8
- warn against or regret it
- 9
The record
Recommended in 4 of 12 months
In 5 different threads.
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 16 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1.7 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 4 of 12 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
- Recommended in 5 threadsNeeds 5 or more, met.
- 10 of its 16 recommenders came from one threadNeeds half or less, not met.
The same rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. Mixed feelings count toward neither side. How the badge works
What people say about it
Reasons grouped from a sample of 36 of the 39 opinions about it, picked in proportion to how many people recommend it, have mixed feelings and criticize it. Each mark is one comment in the sample. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
RISC-V cores seen as significant
“It's basically a updated S3, with faster and newer wireless and memory…”
Comment from 27 Apr 2026 in “Running Bare-Metal Rust Alongside ESP-IDF on the ESP32-S3's Second Core” “RISC-V should make tooling, compiler support, and long-term ecosystem work cleaner”
Comment from 3 Jun 2026 in “ESP32-S31” “RISC-V cores is a big deal for embedded systems”
Comment from 3 Jun 2026 in “ESP32-S31” - Comment from 3 Jun 2026 in “ESP32-S31”
Beats predecessors on specs
“it's going to be a monster when silicon becomes available in quantity.”
Comment from 16 Aug 2026 in “A 3rd World Embedded Engineer Responds to "RISC-V They Should Have Known Better"” “ESP32-S31 is going to be a big hit, and RISC-V is only part of that.”
Comment from 27 Apr 2026 in “Running Bare-Metal Rust Alongside ESP-IDF on the ESP32-S3's Second Core” “beats it out spec wise in almost every way”
Comment from 3 Jun 2026 in “ESP32-S31” Gigabit Ethernet alongside Wi-Fi
“we most likely can extract the I/Q data over its new 1 GBit/s interface”
Comment from 1 Oct 2026 in “Various Projects Find Hidden SDR Capabilities in ESP32 Microcontrollers” “Good to have WiFi and wired ethernet on the same part again.”
Comment from 3 Jun 2026 in “ESP32-S31” “the new ESP chip has gigabit, along with wireless”
Comment from 3 Jun 2026 in “ESP32-S31” Strong value for the price
“it has a chance to become a very successful and what's more importantly really cheap full-featured Linux platform”
Comment from 24 Sep 2026 in “The newest ESP32 can run Linux and it's getting close to a Raspberry Pi” “If the prices remain relatively similar this is going to be incredible value!”
Comment from 3 Jun 2026 in “ESP32-S31”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Lacks CSI, limiting vision use
“S31 has enough raw speed but no CSI.”
Comment from 24 Sep 2026 in “The newest ESP32 can run Linux and it's getting close to a Raspberry Pi” “youre not going to be running any kind of vision model on it”
Comment from 3 Jun 2026 in “ESP32-S31” More expensive than the S3
“A significant more expensive than S3, but it brings a lot to table.”
Comment from 25 Sep 2026 in “The newest ESP32 can run Linux and it's getting close to a Raspberry Pi”
Other microcontrollers people recommend
The four most recommended other microcontrollers, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Mixed | Criticize | Approval | Months | Had for | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ESP32 | 160 | 23 | 30 | 84% | 12 | — | Approved |
| Raspberry Pi Pico | 60 | 10 | 15 | 80% | 12 | — | Approved |
| Arduino boards | 45 | 29 | 67 | 40% | 11 | — | — |
| Raspberry Pi RP2350 | 41 | 3 | 12 | 77% | 11 | — | Approved |
| Espressif ESP32-S31This page | 16 | 8 | 9 | 64% | 4 | — | — |
Also compared with Raspberry Pi RP2040, STM32 microcontroller, Teensy and ESP32-S3.
What people said
36 of the 39 opinions about it, picked in proportion to the three counts, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“it comes in a new WROOM package that's much harder to hand solder”
“the bandwidth to get IQs out fast enough like you can on the S3/S31”
“we most likely can extract the I/Q data over its new 1 GBit/s interface”
“ESP32-S31 seems promising”
“A significant more expensive than S3, but it brings a lot to table.”
“It's at least twice as expensive for the features S31 provides.”
“it has a chance to become a very successful and what's more importantly really cheap full-featured Linux platform”
“S31 has enough raw speed but no CSI.”
“ESP32-S31 has… none. No DAC, no Comparator, no ADC.”
“Page not rendering properly.. also, cloudflare page is coming many times when refreshing.”
“it's going to be a monster when silicon becomes available in quantity.”
“These little devices are extremely interesting.”
“Sadly this S31 can address up to 64 MiB of PSRAM at most.”
“it's much more open and flexible”
“If the prices remain relatively similar this is going to be incredible value!”
“beats it out spec wise in almost every way”
“it only has 2 pulse counters instead of the 4 on the S3”
“It looks like they've been adding more hardware crypto offloads too!”
“RISC-V should make tooling, compiler support, and long-term ecosystem work cleaner”
“those schemes are just as bad as Espressif's”
“youre not going to be running any kind of vision model on it”
“Espressif chips are open source, but yes, I wouldn't run national security or government devices on these.”
“This device is going to be a big hit for Espressif.”
“the new ESP chip has gigabit, along with wireless”
“a nice default option for low volume designs”
“It being RISC-V is awesome”
“The specs look great, will see how long it takes to get these as WROOM modules or on little dev boards”
“it looks like there is no hardware floating point”
“Good to have WiFi and wired ethernet on the same part again.”
“RISC-V cores is a big deal for embedded systems”
“ESP32-S31 is going to be a big hit, and RISC-V is only part of that.”
“It's basically a updated S3, with faster and newer wireless and memory…”
“They're made well, designed well and the libraries are some of the best in class.”
“it does have some issues with the number 4096 though”
“PSRAM starting to get serious bandwidth.”
“That’s a shame, it’d be a cool and, afaik, unique feature for this niche.”
Counts come from 1,791,911 Hacker News comments labeled by Claude, November 2025 to October 2026, with data through October 31, 2026. Counts updated 2 Nov 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.