5 Esp32 Projects That Are Actually Worth The Effort How To Geek

Emily Johnson

-Mar 12, 2026, 7:54 PM

5 esp32 projects that are actually worth the effort how to geek

Are you looking to pick up a few ESP32 development boards? These tiny microcontrollers are super capable and dirt cheap. Here are five ESP32 projects to start you off. The Seeed Studio XIAO ESP32C6 is the perfect microcontroller for your next smart home project. The built-in Zigbee and Z-wave radios compliment Matter and Thread support. Plus, with Wi-Fi 6, it'll easily connect to modern wireless networks.

I’ve never been a fan of traditional motion detectors. They’re inaccurate and need active motion to stay triggered. If you used a traditional PIR motion detector in your bathroom to trigger smart lights at night, sitting still for too long would make the lights shut off. Using an ESP32 and a mmWave presence detection sensor, you can actually make something that’s far better than a PIR motion detector. With a mmWave presence detector, it uses radio waves to detect whether there is someone present in the room, not just if there is movement. Some sensors are even accurate enough to detect heart rate—it’s pretty crazy.

You can use an ESP32 and one of these sensors to build your own presence detector that integrates with Home Assistant through ESPHome. The project is fairly simple, requiring just a few components. It can be powered with either USB or a lithium-ion battery (if you get a charge controller), but the rest is really up to you. You no longer need to spend money on expensive smart devices. If you take your data’s privacy seriously and want your smart home to operate locally, it’s high time to pick up a couple of ESP32 boards. Working with ESP32 does involve some learning curve.

However, ESPHome makes things a lot easier and gets you started quickly. Building your own smart devices and sensors isn’t that hard if you're willing to spend an afternoon or a weekend. In fact, an ESP32 and a bunch of sensors can save you some serious money while giving you a smart home you can fully control. And if you’re willing to roll up your sleeves, there are certain projects that are actually worth building for your smart home. A few require a little more investment and time, but are totally worth it. The ESP32 is affordable and powerful, and there's a lot you can do with one.

Modern doorbells from Ring and Nest are expensive, while Reolink and Eufy offer affordable, subscription-free options. Before jumping the gun, you can make your own local-first Ring doorbell alternative using an ESP32-S3-EYE (or ESP32-S3-CAM) board. Plug an OV2640 camera module and add a button input to act as a doorbell button. ESPHome is excellent for making it work without getting into complex C++ code. That will stream MJPEGs at 10 frames per second, which is good enough to tell if you really need one. Integrate it with Home Assistant to store event snapshots and even craft automations that take screenshots of events.

This project will actually tell you whether you really need a fancy doorbell that stores your data locally. Setting up motion sensors can help track humans or pets. The inexpensive PIR motion sensor HC-SR501 has a range of up to 20m, which is good enough for a medium- or large-sized room. Looking for better human detection? Check out a 24GHz mmWave radar sensor (LD2410C) to detect moving humans as well as those who aren’t, and build a Zigbee-based motion sensor using an ESP32-C6 or ESP32-H2 board. For instance, it can detect if you are not moving or sleeping in a room.

That level of presence detection can help with occupancy-based automation in Home Assistant. Alternatively, you can use a PIR sensor with an ultrasonic sensor to help open the garage door when your vehicle arrives and also help park it properly. I've spent many hours of my life working on automations in Home Assistant. While some of these are brand new, I often find myself tinkering with automations that I've been working on for years. It's like a compulsion, and it's all part of using such a powerful smart home platform. Do you ever wish you had a way to message people long-distance without the need for cell networks or a Wi-Fi connection, or even satellites?

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As a huge fan of winter sports and the Winter Olympics, I've... Top 5 ESP32 Projects You Can Build Today The ESP32 microcontroller has become a favorite in the maker community for its low cost, high performance, and built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth capabilities. Whether you’re an electronics hobbyist, IoT developer, or curious beginner, the ESP32 opens up endless possibilities for connected projects. Here are five standout ESP32 projects that are both fun and practical to build. By pairing the ESP32 with platforms like Home Assistant or ESPHome, you can create a custom home automation system.

Add relays to switch household devices, use DHT22 sensors for temperature and humidity, and integrate it with Alexa or Google Home for voice control. Using an ESP32 with environmental sensors like the BME280, you can measure temperature, humidity, and atmospheric pressure. The ESP32’s Wi-Fi capabilities make it easy to upload data to cloud services or host a web dashboard. The ESP32 is a popular microcontroller with built-in WiFi, perfect for various IoT projects. In this tutorial series, you'll learn how to build 5 exciting ESP32-based projects — ideal for students and beginners starting their IoT journey. WiFi Weather Station – Display temperature and humidity online.

Smart Light Control – Turn lights on/off via WiFi. Automatic barrier gate Control – Control barrier gate using sensors Dangerous Temperature Detector – Trigger alerts with buzzer and LED. Last month, a couple of my Tuya-powered smart plugs stopped being responsive over Wi-Fi. When I checked their Home Assistant activity logs, I discovered that Tuya’s servers caused the hiccups. That felt quite familiar, since every time an expensive smart device from a store troubled me.

In the past few months, I picked up a couple of ESP32 micro-controllers to build my own smart devices to use with Home Assistant. After discovering a bunch of ESP32-based smart home projects, and even building some, has been a game-changer for my smart home. Any DIY enthusiast who loves tinkering needs to start some ESP32 projects. Many of them turn out to be more useful than any store-bought smart device. You don't need to splurge to build a smart home One of my neighbors has a store-bought water-level sensor that blares every time their tank fills up, at any hour of the day.

But it doesn’t take much to build a DIY water level sensor using an ESP32. You can pick a cheap ultrasonic sensor (JSN-SR04T), which is waterproof, and use it with an ESP32 board to measure the water level. The ESP32 microcontroller has become a popular choice among tinkerers. Released by Espressif Systems, this chip comes with WiFi, Bluetooth, multi-core processing, and enough GPIO pins to handle a variety of projects. Thanks to its versatility, it has found use with students building their first microcontroller project to engineers prototyping commercial products. The ecosystem surrounding ESP32 has grown too, including countless projects, tutorials, and community support across forums and GitHub repositories.

As 2026 unfolds, the ESP32 projects scene continues to evolve. Here are 11 builds that show what's possible with this multipurpose microcontroller. The ESP32 E-Paper Weather Display is a low-power weather station that can run on battery for months. It uses a 7.5-inch e-paper screen to show current weather and a 5-day forecast from OpenWeatherMap. A BME280 sensor tracks indoor temperature and humidity. The e-paper display draws very little power during updates, and combined with the ESP32's deep sleep mode, the USB-C charged 5000mAh battery can last 6–12 months with updates being fetched every 30 minutes.

The ESP32 is a type of cheap, low-power microcontroller manufactured by Espressif Systems that is used in everything from homemade projects to academic, commercial, and industrial settings. If you’re looking for something to power your next DIY project, the ESP32 is a great choice. You can pick up an ESP32-C3 development board for less than $2. This is one of the most popular ESP32 variants with a single-core 160MHz RISC-V processor, 400KB SRAM, 384KB ROM for code storage, 2.4GHz Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth 5.0. It has a range of interfaces, including I2C, SPI, two UART connectors, four ADC connectors, and an 11-pin GPIO interface. The price differs for different models, like the ESP32-C6 which includes built-in Thread and Zigbee functionality—perfect for use in a smart home.

Many vendors will offer a bulk discount, which is perfect if you’re creating a fleet of devices for deployment around the home. By comparison, similar microcontrollers like the Raspberry Pi Pico W typically retail for much more. The ESP32’s secret weapon is its reliance on the RISC-V processor architecture, which is completely open source and requires no licensing in order to use. The Seeed Studio XIAO ESP32-C3 is the perfect budget-friendly microcontroller for smart home projects. With Wi-Fi and Bluetooth built-in, it also features a super deep sleep mode for low power usage when it isn't doing anything. The compact size makes this ideal for building smart home projects, and ESPHome allows it to easily integrate into Home Assistant.

5 Esp32 Projects That Are Actually Worth The Effort How To Geek

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5 Esp32 Projects That Are Actually Worth The Effort How To Geek

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Are You Looking To Pick Up A Few ESP32 Development

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​Modern Doorbells From Ring And Nest Are Expensive, While Reolink

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