ESP-Hosted-FG Release 1.0.0.0.0

Major Features & Enhancements

• Network Split:
  Allows host and ESP to share an IP address with traffic split by port ranges. Includes deep packet inspection, custom packet handling, and full documentation.

• Auto IP Restore:
  Automatically restores IP configuration after host boot/wake. Host can fetch IP from ESP.

• Transport & Performance:

  • Refactored build system and added Python app support.
  • Improved SPI performance with diagnostics and workqueue-based processing.
  • Enhanced throughput and power management.
  • Added support for ESP32-C6 (SDIO/SPI), C5(SPI), and C2 (SPI only).
  • Introduced module parameters for SPI and custom RPC/event handling.

• Bluetooth/BLE:

  • Enabled Bluetooth for ESP32-C6 with modem sleep defaults.
  • BLE modem sleep and Wi-Fi NVS enabled by default.

• Control Path & Protocol:

  • Set/Get Country Code support.
  • Version info reporting.
  • Host-controlled Wi-Fi/Bluetooth via RPC.
  • Unique request/response ID support.

• Host & Platform Support:

  • Improved support for Raspberry Pi OS Bookworm and Windows 11.
  • Platform abstraction cleanup.

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Bug Fixes

• Resolved build issues with Linux >6.13.x and latest ESP-IDF.
• Fixed memory leaks, print/logging issues, and SPI transaction bugs.
• Addressed SoftAP SSID/password limits, packet drop logic, reconnect issues, and serial interface edge cases.
• Fixed mempool (DMA) allocation, command handling, and kernel crash on module load/unload.

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Documentation

• New/updated docs for Network Split, Auto IP Restore, ESP32-C6, host setup (Linux, MCU), Windows 11, troubleshooting, porting, and control path APIs with demo apps.

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Other Improvements

• Modularized codebase with better structure for maintainability.
• Added firmware versioning and verification.
• Enhanced power/event management and serial driver access control.

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Upcoming release

• Add ESP32-C5 SDIO support

ESP-Hosted-NG Release 1.0.4.0.0

New Features

• Introduced debugfs interface for improved low-level debugging
• Enhanced logging capabilities for better diagnostics
• Enabled transport speed testing using default firmware
• Added Access Point (AP) mode support
• Integrated Linux Network Manager support for both AP and Station modes
• Introduced support for OTA (Over-the-Air) firmware updates
• Switched to a new versioning format: NG-X.X.X.X.X
• New ESP co-processor support added -

Co-Processor	Transport
ESP32-C2	SPI, SPI+UART
ESP32-S3	SPI, SPI+UART
ESP32-C6	SPI, SPI+UART, SDIO, SDIO+UART

Bug Fixes & Improvements

• Rebased firmware codebase on ESP-IDF v5.4
• Miscellaneous fixes to improve stability, compatibility, and overall feature set

ESP-Hosted-NG Release 1.0.2

New Features

• New chipset ESP32-C3 added
• WPA3 support
• Host sleep
  • Power saving at host is supported with extra GPIO
• Old kernel building (>3.10.0)

Bugfixes

• Fix bootup event
• Fix Scan related crashes

ESP-Hosted-FG Release 0.0.5

New Features

• async control path
  • Request now can be sent with or without blocking for the response (sync/async way)
  • Loose coupling of Control path library for better user integration
• Events notification
  • Subscriber - Notification model, where application will be notified for subscribed events. Users can hook their functionality on received events like:
    • ESP powered on
    • ESP in Station mode: Station disconnected from AP
    • ESP in SoftAP mode: External station disconnected from ESP
    • Heartbeat (ESP alive)
  • New chipsets supported
    • ESP32-S3 - Wi-Fi + BLE on Linux & MCU hosts
    • ESP32-C2 - Wi-Fi + BLE on Linux & MCU hosts (beta)
  • ESP code ported to IDF 5.0
  • Mempool - Cache memory buffers to optimize heap allocations

Other enhancements

• Old kernel building support added for (>3.x) Linux kernels
• Throughput improvements in ESP32-C3
• Bugfix in SoftAP vendor IE
• Python app improvements
  • Command based approach, where single line shell commands supported
  • CLI based approach, User experienced focused CLI introduced with auto suggestions and history support
• Fragmentation support on serial interface

Open Issues

• ESP32-C2 experiences less throughput. Other chipsets do not experience this issue.

ESP-Hosted-NG Release 1.0.1

This release introduces the next generation ESP-Hosted solution for Linux hosts.

This release offers:

• Wi-Fi

  • Standard 802.11 Wi-Fi interface to the host
  • This interface supports cfg80211 based configuration.
  • Standard applications such as wpa_supplicant, iw are supported out of the box
  • Supported Features:
    • Wi-Fi station interface
    • Security modes: Open, WPA/WPA2
          * Supported Wi-Fi functions: Scan, Connect, Disconnect

• Bluetooth/BLE

  • HCI interface for Bluetooth/BLE connectivity

• Supported Espressif SoCs/modules

  • ESP32

• Supported transport layer

  • SDIO (for Wi-Fi and/or Bluetooth/BLE interface)
  • SPI (for Wi-Fi and/or Bluetooth/BLE interface)
  • UART (for Bluetooth/BLE interface)

• Note: The previous version of ESP-Hosted is moved to a new branch 'ESP-Hosted_MCU_Host'

Release V0.4

New Features:

• Support for ESP32C3
  • Wifi/control commands are supported over SPI interface
  • BLE 5.0 is supported over SPI or UART interface
• Support for UART (for BT/BLE) and SPI(Wifi/control command) combination
• Over the air update (OTA) support
• Support 64-bit Linux host platform
• Support of control path commands for socket APIs, wifi transmit power and setting vendor extension IE for softap

Other Enhancements:

• Improved traffic handling
  • Implement queues per traffic type: Control commands, BT/BLE packets, Wifi packets
  • Traffic prioritization
  • Flow control
  • Integrity checks
  • Optimizations in data path
• Miscellaneous bug fixes

Open Issues:

• MCU Host support- SPI interface between STM32 and ESP32 does not work reliably (Note: This problem does not affect ESP32-S2 and ESP32-C3. Those work fine with STM32 host).

Release V0.3

• Added ESP32-S2 support
  • Updated peripheral driver and host driver [both Linux and MCU based] to support ESP32-S2 over SPI interface
  • Following features are supported over ESP32-S2
    • WLAN station
    • WLAN SoftAP
• Optimized SPI data transfer protocol
• Optimized control path and control path API's
• Updated convenience python scripts to make those work with Python 3.0
• Revamped project documentation
• Miscellaneous bug fixes and other improvements

Release V0.2

ESP-Hosted Release v0.2 - Release notes

1. SPI interface Support:
   • Implemented a new transport interface over SPI
   • This is an alternative to previously implemented SDIO interface. Both can not be used at the same time.
   • Following features are supported over SPI interface:
     a] WLAN Station
     b] WLAN SoftAP
     c] BT/BLE
2. Support for MCU based host STM32F469I-DISCO
   • Implemented host software for STM32. It consists:
     a] Transport layer: SPI host driver
     b] Virtual serial interface, which is used for sending control command for Wi-Fi configuration
     c] Network interface layer, which allows easy integration of any network stack with ESP-Hosted solution
   • Current solution demonstrates data path through ARP request-response
   • HCI interface can be implemented over virtual serial interface to support BT/BLE feature

Other enhancements:

1. Reset/EN pin support: Host can reset ESP32 via configured GPIO pin
2. WLAN STA: added WPA3 configuration option
3. CMAKE build support

Release V0.1

Changelog:

• Support for Linux host
• Wi-Fi over SDIO transport support
• BT/BLE over UART and Virtual Serial Interface (over SDIO) support