Disappointing WiFi performance ESP32-S3

[eriksl]

You're obviously not familiar with Espressif chips

This is the part that's totally non-disclosed, closed-source, proprietary, etc.

On the ESP8266 you could replace the standard LWIP library by one modified by yourself, but only if the LWIP version wasn't any newer than some six years, because the interface changed after that and the interface, of course, would be binary, not source.

On the ESP32, using IDF, I think it's possible to replace LWIP altogether and process raw ethernet-like frames. They're still nog 802.11 frames though, they're rewritten to match ethernet format frames. That's nice for LWIP, but it also you can't access any specific 802.11 metadata from the frames.

So that's the status. Access on ethernet-like frames and not anything beyond that. Just hope and pray Espressif will "do the right thing"...

[robiwan]

Yes, very new to the Espressif SoCs and frameworks. Being in the POC phase of my project, I mainly want a low cost low-latency UDP Wifi solution, and as such, the ESP32s did look quite interesting. But maybe I need to look somewhere else.

[eriksl]

I hate to disappoint you, but no manufacturer will disclose it's 802.11 code. Apparently for reasons of protection of IP and for regulatory reasons as well. Mostly "radios" are able to do far more then they're used for (for example, they're always combined with bluetooth functionality). So that also means that with raw access you could do things that are not allowed in your regulatory domain (like using disallowed channels or scrambling other 802.11 users or even other services, like weather radar).

I think there is a perfect solution for this: keep the low level code closed, but define an open interface to the low level code and make the high level interface open. So I think there are "other" considerations as well, not openly communicated.

[robiwan]

I'm an easy guy, I don't ask for much. But I do ask for a timely call to a receive callback within 100 us of having gotten the UDP packet. How hard can it be??

[eriksl]

I am afraid with 802.11 all bets are off. I've seen so many ugly / unexplainable stuff using wireless... One must be very lucky to find a client and a brand+type of access point that exactly match. Until now I've tried many and found none that were 100% compatible.