Week 11: Interface and App

This week, I will be creating an interface to visualize a mic input waveform on the ESP32S3.

Setup

Setting up the ESP32S3 hardware was pretty easy. The sense expansion board supposedly has an onboard mic, so I just connected it on top

Code

I found some code on the Seeed Studio website to pull data from the mic on the ESP32 sense board and push it onto serial. Link Here. Starting here, I intend to push this data to a local visualizer.

Flashing Code

Now here I run into a bunch of issues as is customary with the ESP32. Initially, I got a “serial data cannot be uploaded” error in the Arduino IDE which after a lot of trial and error (changing ports, changing USB C cable etc) I realized was because of the sense expansion board. When I removed it, I was able to flash the ESP32. I then reconnected it and it worked just fine. Hmph

After this, I faced a new challenge. The code was uploaded to the board but would not print anything into serial, and just say “waiting for download”

At this point, I just really wish I could use another board for my project. I’ve had so many dumb issues with the ESP32S3 just not behaving as it should behave, either due to issues from Espressif or issues from Seeed studio’s board. I’m unable to figure this out right now.

After a while, I realized this may be because i eroded the boot button on my esp32 by clicking it too hard. I scratched out to metal contact which was continuously pressing the switch on and voila, the board started working again.

I was now able to flash my code and see the output loudness waveform from the onboard speaker of the sense