Esp32sim
Run ESP32 firmware in the browser
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Hi HN,I’ve been working on esp32sim, an open-source ESP32 emulator that runs in the browser.The fun part of the demo is that there is no ESP32 involved — the firmware is executing in the emulator.The goal is to make ESP32 software easier to experiment with, test and simulate without always needing physical hardware connected.Source: https://github.com/mikroverk/esp32simI made a short video showing it in action: https://youtu.be/waoWFilTWEcI’m particularly interested in feedback from embedded developers: what would an emulator like this need to support before you’d actually use it for development, testing or CI?
Visit website ↗ Source listing ↗
HN · launched Oct 17, 2026 · 207 upvotes (top 4%)
- Horizontal
- Dev tools
- Developer
- Not AI
- Hobby / open-source project
Similar launches
See all 374 similar launches →Could you build this?
No Emulating an ESP32 microcontroller in the browser requires low-level emulation of Tensilica Xtensa or RISC-V CPU cores and hardware peripherals in WebAssembly.
What it would actually take: Building this requires developing a cycle-accurate or functional instruction-set emulator for Xtensa LX6/LX7 architectures compiled to WebAssembly via Rust or C++. It requires implementing virtual hardware peripherals (GPIO, SPI, timers, UART, and virtualized Wi-Fi networking) and integrating them with an interactive browser UI via Canvas and Web Audio APIs. Deep embedded systems, processor architecture, and emulation expertise are required.
Discussion
7 comments analyzed.
Competitors mentioned: Wokwi
Concerns raised: gigantic poorly formatted AI-slop README, vibecoded project code quality concerns, differentiation from existing emulators like Wokwi
Feature requests: reformat and shorten README
Competitors
Other products that read as similar to this one : 374 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.
Attention rank: #19 of 375 (itself plus its competitors, highest first, normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).
Launched 350 days after the earliest competitor.
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- I serve my website with a swarm of ESP32 microcontrollers on a shelf · hn · 2026-08-15 · 14 upvotes · similarity 0.49
- I wrote a 1-bit WebGPU runtime to run a 1.7B LLM in the browser · hn · 2026-07-07 · 5 upvotes · similarity 0.48
- homeassistant_espscreen · github · 2026-09-12 · 27 upvotes · similarity 0.48
Other launches for this product
- No other launches for this product.