Espressif's ESP RainMaker Brings Simpler Provisioning, Updating, Management to ESP32-S2 Devices

Espressif, creator of the popular ESP8266 and ESP32 ranges of system-on-chips for the Internet of Things (IoT), has announced the launch of ESP RainMaker — an attempt to simplify and streamline the development and subsequent support of cloud-powered devices.

"We are truly excited about this launch, especially because it empowers firmware developers with more freedom, creativity, and potential than ever before," Espressif claims in its announcement of ESP RainMaker. "By using Espressif’s ESP-IDF open-source SDK along with the ESP RainMaker Agent, you can build applications and choose to expose any attributes of your device in the application firmware. The ESP RainMaker cloud middleware will transparently make the device attributes available to your phone applications and other services.

"This does not require you to write any code in the cloud. The cloud application is built with AWS Serverless Computing at its base, and is designed to achieve optimal scalability and security. The ESP RainMaker phone applications, then, will redraw themselves to present the attributes of the devices to the user. Reading or changing these attributes is as easy as toggling a button on the phone. The availability of Python bindings lets you access the same attributes through a command-line or through Python programs, so that you can then link with any other services. And all of this happens without any configuration of the cloud interfaces, or phone apps. All you should do is continue focusing on the device firmware."

Designed as a successor to 2019's ESP Jumpstart platform, ESP RainMaker includes a device agent software development kit capable of handling network provisioning, over-the-air (OTA) updates, and cloud communications; a transparent cloud middleware designed to expose device attributes to phone applications or other third-party services, including voice-activated assistant platforms, powered by Amazon Web Services (AWS); so-called "self-adapting" smartphone applications for Android and iOS devices, allowing for configuration and management of connected devices; and a set of Python bindings for automated communication tasks.

In its initial launch, ESP RainMaker supports Espressif's latest ESP32-S2 system-on-chip product family, its first to include an integrated processing core built around the free and open source RISC-V instruction set architecture (ISA); the company has not yet provided a roadmap for extending the platform to previous-generation ESP32 or older parts.

ESP RainMaker is now available on the official website.