#363 Which ESP32 pins are safe to use?

The ESP32 is a beast, with some “secrets.” Today we will look at its pins and create a “Priority” pin list, which saves you a lot of time and hassle.
In this video:
- We will get an overview of all pins of the ESP32
- Learn which pins have particular purposes and therefore have to be treated with care
- Learn the real universally usable pins
- Create a strategy on how to use the many pins for our projects
- And do some programming examples
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[WacKEDmaN]

another great, informative, and useful video.. thanks Andreas :)
...what about PSRAM pins..dont they use a few aswell?

[GEJD]

Also you can’t use GPIO-12 if an external pull-up is connected to it, say for a sensor, as it prevents the ESP32 from booting and causes a flash error.

[orparga]

Maybe the most useful video about ESP-32. You have saved a lot of hours of our lives...

10 hours saved * 1500 vievers( at this moment) = 1'7 years of work

[Designments]

Your channel is an absolute gem. No nonsense, concise, well researched videos are rare, and you consistently deliver. Thank you!

[deivissergio]

Very good, explanatory video of all I/O functions at once. Many people look for something like this. I own a Company in Germany, and we use the ESP32 in one of our products (IoT devices)... and we use the Internal Hall sensor, as a tricky "Factory Reset" feature. When we finish with all the tests, before send to a customer, we select a "special" condition in the device, and we left the device in such as a "Magnetic bed" for a while... and this performs the "Factory Reset"... so the device is tested and ready for shipment to the customer. (I think this Hall effect sensor, is not very important, but sometimes we can have a good idea to use it... 🤔)

[aviatorbja]

So good. No ads till the end. This channel is too good to be true.
Very interesting and informative.

[JohnBaxendale]

Thank you, this is *so* useful! I was just about to pick up an old ESP32 project and start to work out which pins to use, this will save me lots of time :)

[ayrtonestrella]

This video y extremely useful! I'm so grateful, Andreas! I have been researching for weeks in an attempt to learn how to choose the pins and which pins I should not use. Your video is the most explicit and easy-to-understand resource I have ever seen for the ESP32. I actually decided to update my ESP32-WROOM schematic symbol to distribute the pins accordingly, for easier PCB designs. I really appreciate the work and effort that you put in, and I'm looking forward on becoming your supporter on Patreon. Thank you, thank you very much.

[rklauco]

Cool project with touch pins? My daughter has a KiwiCo box with RGB led. It was possible to turn on or off the specific colors, so you could create few colors by combination. I sneaked in the ESP32 inside, used the "switches" (removed the contact between them) and modified them to 6 touch switches. By that she can set any color she'd like - the pairs of touch buttons act as color+ and color- for specific channels :) Works quite well :D She likes it a lot. Now she has a night light with variable color.

[mazirius]

I literally ran into some of the problems mentioned in this video last weekend. I couldn't find any useful write ups on which pins to use safely if you only need a few. Again you show the awesome ability to find out topics that need better documentation and provide very useful and condensed information. Thank you very much!

[hoodafukisalice]

This is gold for developers using ESP32. Thank you for sharing the Excel sheet Andreas.

[sharpbends]

I used touch pins connected to case screws as rudimentary input device for up down back enter commands etc on GPS alarm clock :-)

[TheDefpom]

@Andreas Spiess I checked into the way I modified the ESP32 Dev Kit V1.0 for the programming failure issue, add a 2.2uF electrolytic capacitor between EN and GND, it programmes fine every time like that without having to press any buttons.

[Thorathome]

This is incredibly helpful: identifying the ESP32 ‘safe’ pins, a little on interrupts, a bit on PWM, an intro to inline debugging. You make the ‘32 even mor fun and productive. Thank you GWTSA.

[keen]

Andreas does everything I wish I had the time to do. I'm also an EE but don't have time to investigate and experiment as Andreas, so I live vicariously thru his videos.

[DemokratieErwacht]

Ich habe mir das Excel runtergeladen und mit deinen Kommentaren aus dem Video versehen! Danke! Das hat mir echt Arbeit gespart als ESP32-Neuling.

[LarryKapp]

Thanks again for taking a confusing subject and making it understandable for all those of us who aren't so tech savvy . Transferring the data sheet info to your own spreadsheet was well worth the time it took too .

[JulianGrammer]

Yet another highly informative video. Thank you. I couldn't stop laughing at so few pins available for general programming when comparing with your video #159 at 1:40. Amazing what one can learn in three years.

[academicpachyderm]

Holy cow. Thank you so much! I almost ordered my own esp32 breakout boards yesterday, but after watching this I'm definitely adding some asterisks to my silkscreen pin numbers. I'm also trying to start experimenting with the esp32-s2, so I'll be on the lookout for "gotchas" there, too.

[marinehm]

I ran into these problems with my Wemos ESP8266. This is great information!! Still plenty of available of pins. Now we can use them smartly. Thanks for breaking them down to usable pins.