#345

Many commenters tell me that the STM32 MCUs are great. The last time they were used on this channel was in video #11 on Jul 27, 2015. High time for a closer look.
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[@hygri]

The guy with the Swiss Accent - Smashing the Arduino learning curve into a pancake since Video #1.

[@AndreasSpiess]

Thank you!

[@Bravo_L]

The guy with the Swiss accent knows alot of cool things for sure 👍

[@beauregardslim1914]

You always seem to know exactly what I'm wondering about. Thanks so much for the comprehensive comparison.

[@AndreasSpiess]

You are welcome!

[@iforce2d]

Depending on what you're making, the larger memory of the ESP32 can be a HUUUGE win, probably should have been given a mention in your summary

[@AndreasSpiess]

Thanks for the addition. Coming from the ESPs I did not think too much about memory. Maybe I will miss it when I do more with STM32... BTW: Did not see a Video since a Long time on your channel. Always love them!

[@Stopinvadingmyhardware]

@@AndreasSpiessstop the pill shit. These people don’t even care what they did to our lives

[@bananaman2495]

@@Stopinvadingmyhardware what?

[@Stopinvadingmyhardware]

@@bananaman2495 Nobody asked you a damn thing

[@mattmurphy7030]

@@Stopinvadingmyhardwaresomeone needs their pills…

[@jessiegashler427]

A genuinely clear and concise comparison of the two. I'll be subscribing to your channel based solely on this video. Fantastic work.

[@AndreasSpiess]

Welcome aboard the channel!

[@RTmadnesstoo]

I always wait a while to watch your videos so the comment section can fill up. Sometimes the comments are almost as good as the video. Almost. Thanks for your efforts.

[@AndreasSpiess]

You are right. I am proud of my commenters. They know much more than me alone.

[@RTmadnesstoo]

@@AndreasSpiess Well, nobody has taught me more than you. Thanks, again.

[@anvz6]

Atvantages of stm32: it can act as USB keyboard, serial, even as USB storage... All at the same time if needed.

[@AndreasSpiess]

True. I did not mention this fact explicitly. I only used this feature for upload.

[@ami6packs]

@@cambouiscom it supports hid.

[@ami6packs]

And DMA too. It makes coding a lot easier in case of data sampling e.g. ADC Samp.

[@arduinoguru7233]

@@cambouiscom HID works on it .

[@crosswick]

Also, the F105 and F107 have USB-OTG functionality (as do some more expensive ones)

[@theboots39]

Thank you for this video. I was trying to answer this exact question for the last week. I've been using esp32, but I rarely have any need for internet connectivity. At the moment, I don't think it's worth changing over, but definitely a consideration for future projects. Perfect timing!

[@AndreasSpiess]

Without Wi-Fi the STM32 boards are a good selection, I think

[@TheAoab50]

Many thanks again for the great efforts to give us comparison results ready and free.

[@AndreasSpiess]

My pleasure!

[@NotMarkKnopfler]

Great video. What I would really like to see is an STM32 video showing how the low power modes work. Particularly wake-on-interrupt. I would really like to see that. Thanks again, Andreas.

[@AndreasSpiess]

Power consuption is stuff for a whole video...

[@ch94086]

ST has some nice dev boards with the STM32L low power series. These dev boards (discovery) have a separate processor to measure chip power down to nanoamps, and there are tutorials demonstrating all the power modes. After wake, it can read the sleep power and show on the epaper display.

[@RRits57]

Would love to see this comparison as well

[@drbra1n]

STM32F4xx has FPU, USB OTG working in both, device and host mode (some MCUs have 2 ports), support for external FLASH/SRAM/LCD screen, internal RTC clock, support for SD cards. The debugging capabilities are also awesome - breakpoints, single stepping, memory & register view, SWO tracing. AFAIK, ESP32 can be debugged too :)

[@AndreasSpiess]

You are right. I made a video about debugging the ESP32. And I should get some F4 boards...

[@alfredopreciadomolina1576]

wow, just what I was looking for, you can't ask for a better explanation, as always, master.

[@AndreasSpiess]

Glad you liked it!

[@Brandon-rc9vp]

Thank you for freely sharing such great content. It is intellectually interesting, quirkily entertaining, and best of all technically informative for us trying to get back to our roots in electronics and learn how to operate todays newfangled gadgets :) If I had to guess I would say you are one of those rare individuals that know what an exciter is and at the same time can hold your own at any maker fair today. Good on you sir!

[@AndreasSpiess]

Thank you for your kind words! And enjoy your hobby (again). Quite a few of my viewers report the same. We live in a beautiful (electronics) time.

[@derecwilsom4546]

that little hand makes me so happy, i giggle every time I see it!

[@jankomuzykant1844]

Deadpool hand ;o)

[@derecwilsom4546]

@@jankomuzykant1844 lol now i like it even more!

[@crckdns]

I personally am using the blackpill for smaller projects. Great video as always! Please more STM32 content 😻👍 (we use them also in our flight controllers ^^)

[@AndreasSpiess]

I think I will have a look at the interest and decide about the future plans.

[@giorgioboiero]

Some information about the Black Pill STM32F4x1 from the chinese designer github.com/WeActTC/MiniF4-STM32F4x1 It's now supported by STM32Duino but it's not yet integrated the USB Bootloader of WeAct

[@happysingh-gk2dj]

Hiii brother can u send your email.i want to learn black pill

[@hebersolisbravo4502]

Excelente análisis, me ayudo mucho en la selección para el proyecto. Muy bueno

[@AndreasSpiess]

Glad it helped!

[@shabbarvejlani]

Thank you Sir for your analysis ! Appreciate!

[@AndreasSpiess]

My pleasure!

[@rcfreakamit]

Great video! For me though, the main motivation for going with stm32 over arduino or esp32 is the much more capable (and more difficult to learn) STM CubeMX config suite with the STM32 eclipse IDE, with St-link debugger, rather than the difference in sheer hardware capabilities.

[@AndreasSpiess]

Good point!

[@evabaroni6693]

System workbench for STM32 (SW4STM32) by AC6 tools with cubeMX is my go to for these CPUs. Sorry but can't call Arduino an IDE after using SW4STM32.

[@RustedCroaker]

@@evabaroni6693 Did you tried Keil by any chance?

[@TimSavage-drummer]

The one big advantage I found for the STM32 is the ease at which I can set up a hardware debugger with the STM32Cube IDE. The STM32 Discovery boards are great for prototyping and cheap, I only use ESP boards now for wifi connectivity. Have a black pill driving my DIY modular synth as a MIDI to CV converter, the hardware debugger came in really handy for developing that.

[@AndreasSpiess]

You are right: A debugger is a good thing. I probably will try to use it, but with platformIO.

[@VideoDetection]

Another interesting and informative video, Andreas, thank you! Watching this video and the Arduino IDE being used made me realise my move to test micropython on the ESP32 was worthwhile. Maybe you can have another look at the ESP family being programmed using micropython and the Thonny IDE. Micropython have a generic board version for ESPs and Thonny makes it all a easy and effective tool. Love to see a future video from you on using this IDE and language!

[@AndreasSpiess]

I wait for the S2 to do the next MicroPython Video.

[@newburypi]

Yet again, both useful and interesting. Thank you.

[@AndreasSpiess]

My pleasure!

[@mrrboo]

Thx for the interesting video. I think it's also a matter of "makers" VS "pro", in a pro embedded development environment STM32 is the king (with ST official boards, mbed dev environment for example more than Arduino) and ESP + Arduino rules the makers market. In my company we use a lot of STM32 dev boards, you can find official STM32 "Arduino nano format" boards with Cortex-M4F for 10€ like the NUCLEO-L432KC

[@AndreasSpiess]

You are right about the different environments. For professional usage, you usually go with the supplier tools. On this channel, most users use Arduino IDE because they do not use STM chips as a first choice.

[@mr.meticulous1241]

Exactly the video I was waiting for! Thanks Andreas :)

[@AndreasSpiess]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@PhG1961]

Thnxs for this very well explained overview. A nice wrap up !

[@AndreasSpiess]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@PhG1961]

@@AndreasSpiess I always do ;-)

[@korishan]

Very nice comparison Andreas. I had wondered what the biggest difference (other than BT/WiFi/cost) between the two would be. Thanks for the info! 😎

[@AndreasSpiess]

Glad it was helpful!

[@EdFrench_uk]

Most of the "Blue Pills" have an incorrect resistor, which means the USB interface wont be recognised on a lot of machines (I think it depends on your PC's USB driver chip). I think there is also some software problem as I haven't been able to get it to work consistently even when I fix the bad resistor.

[@giorgioboiero]

The problem with the USB is sometime related to the use of clones of the STM32 chip , not only the wrong USB resistor www.cnx-software.com/2020/03/22/how-to-detect-stm32-fakes/ List of STM32 compatible chips www.richis-lab.de/STM32.htm A good work around is to upload the firmware using the ST-LINK and then upload an USB HID bootloader github.com/Serasidis/STM32_HID_Bootloader

[@AndreasSpiess]

Thank you for the hint. I saw a remark about that resistor, but have no blue pill.

[@cbm80amiga]

@@AndreasSpiess In most cases "wrong" resistor doesn't cause any issues. At least I tested it on 9 computers I have at home - USB works as expected.

[@marcovalenti2621]

@@giorgioboiero where may i find a "healthy" Blue Pill ( For Healthy i mean that it doesn't have problem with HID)? (sorry for my bad english)

[@TomaszStachewicz]

@@marcovalenti2621 most new sold blue pills now have corrected usb pullup resistor. check out the photo of the boards underside, it's resistor r10. it should read 152 (1.5k ohm) and definitely not 103 (10k ohm)

[@wingedrhino_]

This is the first thing I'm seeing after waking up late on a Sunday, having spent the whole night dreaming about pitch detection algorithms. Wish I was a little more normal 😂

[@AndreasSpiess]

Nice you remember what you dreamed of. I never remember :-(

[@BenMitro]

I think the correct word is fretting rather than dreaming.

[@hamjudo]

An FFT is a common way to get a list of approximate frequencies out of a microphone or other noisy analog source. I've never needed very precise frequencies, so I haven't any experience with those algorithms.

[@stephenborntrager6542]

FFT is probably better, but one simple method that I know if is to set a window of a several thousand samples (maybe 4x the max frequency you care about), measure the time between peaks, and then average the periods. 1 / period (seconds) = frequency (Hz). From there, tables can be used to lookup "notes" ie A4 = 440Hz. I don't know how well it works, since it was a very crude method and I never actually used it. Probably won't work with lots of harmonic content. Might need to weigh the sample periods by the amplitude or something... or add some sort of hysteresis to keep the output stable... Great. Now I'M stuck thinking about them!

[@williamdunn5081]

Normal is totally overrated.

[@phymacillustrator]

Thank you so much, It helped me to understand options to program STM32. Thanks again.

[@AndreasSpiess]

You are welcome!

[@BluCasper]

Thank you for such an amazing content. It was really helpful. Stay safe and have a great day. Best wishes for you.

[@AndreasSpiess]

You are welcome! I am vaccinated twice already:-)

[@BluCasper]

@@AndreasSpiess that's great. waiting for your upcoming videos. if possible please make a video how a newbie can program esp with micropython and use AI somehow to make something intelligent.

[@AndreasSpiess]

This channel is more for the advanced (or at least ambitious) Maker. So you probably will not find stuff for beginners...

[@BluCasper]

​@@AndreasSpiess there are tons of channels for beginners. I like your contents sepcially the comparing. But i think you should make another video comparing different ESPs and different STM MCUs. How good are other ARM products from atmel, TI and other brands. It'd be really helpful. Thanks in advance

[@bobblaine1437]

Thank you for the very useful video. I've been curious where the STM32 fit in the micro controller pecking order, and when to use it.

[@AndreasSpiess]

There are many more STM chips. I assume I will cover a few more to get an overview.

[@EdFrench_uk]

I like both, I haven't looked much at power consumption on the stm32- that might be something where it wins a bit? I don't think anyone has done a video on stm32 sleep modes and power consumption with Arduino?

[@AndreasSpiess]

Power consumption is also on my list...

[@edwitte4752]

I believe Stm32 supports DMA for peripherals (ADC/ I2C etc). This can free up the processor for other tasks... Maybe add this one to the 'to do' list?

[@damny0utoobe]

@@AndreasSpiess STM32 also has the L0 lineup which is the ultra low power line. This one can run on a small battery for years. It's much more energy efficient than ESP32

[@yunshi7786]

Thank you very much for such a detailed and clear comparison. Since they are all pretty cheap, I’ll buy all of them to have a try and compare the outputs in my projects.

[@AndreasSpiess]

You are welcome!

[@unclejoe8310]

Where the hell do you get STM32 chips right now 🥴

[@felixruiztorrez5192]

Really good videos! Thank you!

[@AndreasSpiess]

You are welcome!

[@victorlacerda9659]

The blackpill stm32f411 or stm32f410 both was floating point hardware and a faster clock speed than the bluepill. This make thinking if stm32f4 could be a better choice for floating point calculation.

[@AndreasSpiess]

True! The Blackpills are in the mail...

[@m0rph171]

@@AndreasSpiess Would be really interesting to see the calculation result for the f4 blackpill!

[@sharana.p5921]

My favourite is STM32. Please make video to program esp8266 using embedded c or bare metal programming. Thank you.

[@AndreasSpiess]

I will stick to the Arduino IDE :-( But I did a video about assembler programming of the ESP32

[@sharana.p5921]

@@AndreasSpiess Oh ok thank you Mr. Andreas and another one is there, what about making a RF circuit like 435 MHz 4 channel or 8 channel circuit from scratch? Would you make it si, please.

[@deangreenhough3479]

Good work Andreas 😁🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

[@AndreasSpiess]

Thank you!

[@GlennHamblin]

Thanks for the testing and advise. Very helpful.👍

[@AndreasSpiess]

Glad it was helpful!

[@RickB3n]

I have a suggestion: Try also the ST Nucleo boards, i think it's a good alternative to "blue pill" or other.

[@AndreasSpiess]

I thought they were bigger and more expensive?

[@RickB3n]

@@AndreasSpiess I understand, but an original Arduino UNO is more expensive. The ST Nucleo costs between 10 and 40$ For a hobbist it's possible. ST if you read this give me more boards 😂

[@anvz6]

@@RickB3n You can buy an UNO or a mini for 3€

[@RickB3n]

@@anvz6 It's true, but a chinese copy. They often also use a low quality clone for the atmega 328p.

[@SamupamIn]

@@AndreasSpiess you can buy stmf407vgt etc boards with more I/0 then mega or due at 10 USD from AliExpress.

[@curlybrace6694]

bluepill has software floating point implementation. esp32 has hardware. stm32f4 also has hardware floating point. xtensa is a very slow core, compared to cortex. even having much faster clock, it wins only a little bit in speed.

[@AndreasSpiess]

You are right with the speed difference: It was very small for port I/O and integer. Maybe I will do some tests with the F4 when I get it.

[@thegittubaba]

@@AndreasSpiess can you run ESP32 at slower clock? It'd be interesting to see the comparison when both are running at same clock frequency.

[@ragesmirk]

@@AndreasSpiess Use these boards: www.aliexpress.com/item/4000103610226.html I have them they are very high quality

[@Cracked1ce]

@@AndreasSpiess The F4 black pill is a beast. i am doing floating point calculations for engine management and the speed difference is astronomical. it takes nearly 700 clock cycles for the F1 for a floating point multiply or divide whereas it is instantaneous on the F4.

[@happysingh-gk2dj]

@@Cracked1ce hii brother can you send your contact or email I facing problem in blue pills ..thankyou

[@christianlennertz5780]

Like always great video. I also like the „Black Pill“. The Stm32F411 is very good in my opinion. What I really like of it, is the integrated USB ports.

[@AndreasSpiess]

As I said, they are in the mail and for sure I will play with them...

[@mieszkogulinski168]

Thank you for explaining - not "which is better", but when to use one, and when to use another :)

[@AndreasSpiess]

Titles on KZbin have their own rules ;-)

[@moudi0082]

stm32 f4 and f7 series have built in FPU for floating point operations

[@AndreasSpiess]

You are right!

[@cwbh10]

Lol I just replaced my "Blue Pill" with an ESP32 on a project I'm working on, since the community support for the ESP32 is just better

[@AndreasSpiess]

I think you are right with the community.

[@cwbh10]

@@AndreasSpiess In my specific case I was trying to use the NRF24 modules, and it worked flawlessly with the RF24 library on the ESP32 and not the STM32. I figured I could get it working, but for the project the time is important and if it just works, I'm going to go with that device (mostly)

[@danielegger6460]

Outside of Arduino the support and community for Cortex-M MCUs is way beyond the support for ESP32 and AVR MCUs combined. I'm actually slightly disappointed that Andreas Spiess fell back to using the lame Arduino instead of going for platformIO which would have allowed for a much better comparison.

[@Vicolaships]

Give libopencm3 a chance, it's a great hardware library with a nice community and documentation (libopencm3.org/docs/latest/stm32f1/html/modules.html ). STM32 for Arduino is a little bit dead and the code quality is poor. libopencm3 for Blue-Pill examples here: (C or C++, project configured with CMake): gitlab.com/VictorLamoine/libopencm3_bluepill_examples. You can pick any IDE you like that supports CMake, I like KDevelop. "Beginning STM32: Developing with FreeRTOS, libopencm3 and GCC" (Warren Gay) book is a great way to get started with practical examples and explanations. If you want to do some real-time (detailed in Warren Gay book) check-out: gitlab.com/VictorLamoine/libopencm3_freertos_bluepill_examples Feel free to reach me for help!

[@AndreasSpiess]

@Daniel: Can you contact me to discuss the integration into platformIO?

[@avejst]

Great update video as always 👍 Thanks for sharing 👍😀

[@AndreasSpiess]

You are welcome!

[@a1nelson]

Thanks for all the good work you do channel. I’ve learned a lot from it and look forward to new videos. This one, unfortunately, was the rare exception when I cannot really agree with your conclusions. The main issue is that the STM32 model chosen, while being very cheap and popular, isn’t really in the same class as the ESP32. In STM32F4 or STM32L4 would have been more appropriate, since they have similar clock speeds and feature an FPU (among other things). The other thing is that, in the absence of at least two excellent voltage references, pretty much all ADCs need to be calibrated. Their output magnitude and slope are relative, not absolute - despite what the datasheets imply. As an aside, neither board has very much in the way of decoupling, so noise is going to be a significant factor too. STM recommends a ferrite bead or independent decoupling for the VDDA input, but the blue pill and other low-cost boards do not have those parts. Based on the form factor, I doubt the ESP32 boards have them either. If the data points for the comparison were not collected under the same conditions (at about the same time), that adds a lot of uncertainty. Just things to consider. Thanks again for all your hard work.

[@AndreasSpiess]

You are right with the FPU. I will look at it in a future video. And about noise reduction on boards: The ADC of the Maple Mini was better than the ESP32 in the configuration bought by my viewers. And this is what counts on this channel. I am sure all boards could be improved if buyers would see the differences pay a little more. But platforms like AliExpress support a race to the bottom price. So, if you want a decent board, you have to make your own. Which is also not too complicated anymore.

[@a1nelson]

Andreas Spiess Thanks for your quick and thoughtful reply. What you said makes very good sense. It caused me to check my assumptions. The first is that, as one moves beyond just flashing an LED, the cost of the MCU board becomes a smaller and smaller part of the total system cost. Using a board with better ADCs or more IO pins may be easily justified by eliminating the need for IO expanders, external ADCs, more complicated software, etc. But, importantly, not every project requires that. You mentioned checking battery voltage, which is a good example of a situation when high accuracy isn’t critical. My second assumption was related to your final comment. Although I have a handful of STM dev boards, Teensys, etc., for non-trivial projects, I often just roll a new board. And, although it’s pretty easy to do so, it’s definitely not for everyone. So, after a bit of reflection, I do appreciate your position much better. Thanks again. Be well.

[@Ottmar555]

@@a1nelson Do you have the reference about using ferrite in the VDDA input? I'm having a little more noise than I'd like for my application in my ADC, and a moving average is not a good option, since I need fast code. Do you have any suggestions?

[@tigercat3864]

I abandoned the Blue Pill because there's no reliable supply of legit or even consistent boards. Too many of them are fakes or bad clones that don't work reliably. It's ESP8266/ESP32 & Teensy FTW.

[@AndreasSpiess]

Thank you for sharing your experience!

[@WacKEDmaN]

apples vs oranges... ESP32 has wifi and bluetooth... STM32 does not...it all depends on the use and features needed..

[@AndreasSpiess]

I thought I covered these things in the video...

[@WacKEDmaN]

@@AndreasSpiess sorry mate..i deleted that bit after i seen you covered it! :P

[@zoli11]

Not quite. I have been doing stuff with ESP32, but this comparison showed me that even if I don't need wifi, in most cases I don't miss out if I just keep using those, and save myself the trouble of getting familiar with a different setup.

[@mxmxjrjr]

The most kind heart to make this video

[@AndreasSpiess]

Unfortunately I do not understand :-(

[@mxmxjrjr]

@@AndreasSpiess someone like you who have resources showing knowledge like this on internet makes a lot of different for people who want to learn and only have youtube. If some day i want to build something and need to compare what you did, i do not need to try and error by buying each of those. Now i know what to choose for my project all thanks to your video. Great job you have done.

[@electronic7979]

Very helpful video 👍

[@AndreasSpiess]

Glad you think so!

[@ivolol]

It's great of you to mention the makers of the software/firmware/libraries that enable all the tinkering!

[@AndreasSpiess]

We all stand on their shoulders and we should know that!

[@erygion]

Great video! I've been wanting to get to running STM32F103 without a FTDI breakout board! I'll use it a lot more now thanks 😁

[@AndreasSpiess]

Glad it was helpful!

[@erygion]

@@AndreasSpiess Yes sir, thank you. 🙂

[@silverjohnson3163]

wifi is important to my projects, it's one of the very cool things about the 8266 and esp32 boards. Thanks for the review

[@AndreasSpiess]

Same here...

[@santorcuato]

Thanks Andreas. I do mainly IoT so WiFi is a must, even bluetooth to read some sensors, so... The ESP32 is not perfect but as a maker I focused on it and it works for me. Nevertheless it's always interesting to know some other alternatives to right choose in the future. Good job!

[@AndreasSpiess]

That was the purpose of the video. To know the choices.

[@AttilaAsztalos]

If one needs WiFi there's simply no alternative to the ESP32 series. On the other hand, not a single project I did ever needed WiFi and at that point that RTOS and WiFi stack preempting everything you do is just a liability.

[@DanDrown]

Thank you for creating this nice tutorial on the STM32 boards For the ADC, the Vref channel is not used automatically. You can read from it using readVref on the ADC object, but it looks like the code is incomplete.

[@AndreasSpiess]

Thanks for the info!

[@lohikarhu734]

I missed a comparison of power consumption when running benchmarks... Also, just a note that the differences in non-floating-point are quite a bit smaller than the clock speed difference. Thanks very much for this work, i especially like the walk-through on software setup. Alles gute, MfG'n

[@AndreasSpiess]

I was also astonished about the small difference... This was an introduction and, depending on the response, I plan to do something with power consumption in the future.

[@lohikarhu734]

@@AndreasSpiess very good comparison, and i know that you are guided by comments, so it's clearly a fine response to those... as you probably note, i'm a bit of a 'picky' one on some things ;-) i kind of wonder at these microsecond(s) interrupt times, it would, perhaps, be interesting to see what code the compiler generates for IRQ handling, how much is stacked on entry. With 80 MHz clock rates, a fast IRQ should be sub-microsecond.... maybe a bit too deep for the average user?

[@AndreasSpiess]

I posted the measurements done for digitalwrite in another comment. It takes nearly half of the time...

[@GreatProjects]

Great Job! Thanks for sharing.

[@AndreasSpiess]

You are welcome!

[@mariasaranoursadoun4194]

Thank you so much for the informative video ! I'm new to your channel but I absolutely love it. You covered all my interrogations expect for one: while each of them has its pros and cons what can explain the obvious price tag difference between them ?

[@AndreasSpiess]

I cannot change the price. I just counts in your decision making

[@stewartrv]

I like the Bluepill and the newer Blackpill's even more, especially if you get one with the extra memory. For about $5 it's very fast and will also run MicroPython. It's a pity you didn't have the new Blackpill baords yet. I hope you'll do a quick update with them when you get your hands on them. Oh and don't forget to have some USB-C cables on hand the blackpills use that now instead. 73

[@AndreasSpiess]

I have more and more USB-C cables. That should not be teh limitting factor ;-)

[@stewartrv]

@@AndreasSpiess I have Android only and so didn't have any USB-C and forgot to order at the same time :) I have a few now though! Of course you can program without a USB-C anyway.

[@blekenbleu]

Thanks; looking forward to a similar comparison for Nordic dongles

[@AndreasSpiess]

This is definitively on my list!

[@R3VISION3]

I personally had to install the USB bootloader using the ST-Link only since the FTDI boards I ordered are still in the mail. I was about to recommend the video guide made by Caleb Marting back in February until I noticed it in the description, since that's the one that helped me figure out the bootloader flashing without having to use FTDI boards like most other videos seem to show.

[@AndreasSpiess]

Calebs video is very good. I found quite a few references on how to use ST-Link to flash the bootloader. But only blogs, not videos.

[@ales_xy]

This is great video with a lot of interresting informations. There is another aspect of choosing the MCU - the development environment. I really hate Arduino, so I'm using Atmel Studio, MPLAB or different IDE's provided by chip's manufacturers, usually based on Eclipse IDE. The Atmel Studio, which is based on Microsoft Visual Studio, suits me best and I think it's also superior to MPLAB, which is based on NetBeans. That's why I prefer the SAM and AVR.

[@AndreasSpiess]

This channel would be dead in weeks if I would change the IDE. Also because you find at least as many people proving you that you are completely wrong and their IDE is much better :-( I suggest using platformIO for the more advanced guys.

[@dabupk3807]

Awesome video 👌

[@AndreasSpiess]

Thanks 😀

[@sail4life]

Thanks for another awesome video. I was wondering about the comparison. I have used ESP8266, stm32f.. and arduinos for my projects, will definitely start looking for an excuse to use an ESP32 soon ;-) Maybe with an external ADC...

[@AndreasSpiess]

You will love the WiFi capability and lots of pins...

[@srtech2205]

Awesome video Bud!!! I've been moving away from Arduino bc they r weak and slow! They r awesome for beginners, and some of the modified boards such as my Beloved DFRobot RoMeo V2.2 R3 and Mega+WiFi RobotDyn (Mega2569/ESP8266 Hybrid) are better than stock Arduinos, but I got my hands on some ESP and STM32 Hardware to add 2 my Arsenal and this video makes it easy to pick a board for a project! Especially a more advanced project! Great work as always Bud!!!!

[@AndreasSpiess]

Thank you!

[@GeorgeWMays]

Very interesting and informative. Thank you for your project and video. It is truly appreciated.

[@AndreasSpiess]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@AlexShoyhit]

very helpful info thank you very much

[@AndreasSpiess]

You are welcome

[@kwazar6725]

Thanks Andreas. Nice work. Good conclusions. Stm has a higher res adc from specs. Interesting to see floating point comparison though. What about power draw?

[@AndreasSpiess]

Power consumption is stuff for another video...

[@asm_nop]

In my college courses, we used a board running an STM32F405. That board runs a Cortex-M4F at up to 168MHz with an integrated FPU. It's more expensive, but it was extremely capable, had multiple separate ADCs/DACs, etc.

[@AndreasSpiess]

As I mentioned, I should get some F4 blackpills.

[@UReasonIt]

The newer Risc-V offerings may be a good thing the look at as well. The GD32VF103 is a little monster of a processor. Built-in floating-point support and a high fast clock rate. It has been fairly easy to use via PlatformIO and the SDK they have. There may be an Arduino like framework for it now, but I have not checked. LillyGo and Sipeed both make a board with the GD32 chip on it.

[@AndreasSpiess]

There are many cool processors around and these Risc-V ones are for sure interesting. My problem is that I have to produce videos for a big community. So I always have to decide.if the topic would be interesting...

[@samuelvieira4504]

Ty for the video. You should also consider measuring energy consumption. In this case, I believe stm32 would be the best choice as well.

[@FIREMAN-ff3cj]

Best choince is rpi pico

[@leonardoh6140]

@ 7:14 a wise man said: When you "pluck" the usb "pluck"... Just kiddind, nice video as always!

[@AndreasSpiess]

:-)

[@Bianchi77]

Nice video, keep it up,thanks :)

[@AndreasSpiess]

You are welcome!

[@tasty_sand]

I didn't know you can code a moving average without recording data samples. I was mindblown!

[@AndreasSpiess]

The moving average should be ok. A true average needs storing the data.

[@MithatKonar]

A word of caution around "Black Pills": There are (at least) two different strains of products using the "Black Pill" moniker out there. Before the current crop of STM32F4-based Black Pills were a thing, RobotDyn started making several modules based on the STM32F1 Blue Pill and referred to them as Black Pills. These are very good STM32F1 modules -- in black rather than blue. They are not what the cool kids mean when they talk about Black Pills.

[@AndreasSpiess]

I odered boards with an F4 chip and hope I will get the right chips..

[@lylerodericks]

Very clear! Thanks a ton

[@AndreasSpiess]

You're welcome!

[@TristanGomez]

I've been playing around with the NRF52832 and the low power BLE capabilities mean I can have it running on coin cells without much problems! It's the younger brother (sister?) of the NRF52840 found in the new Arduino Nano 33 BLE and also programmable with the Arduino IDE. I'd love to see more of the this Nordic Semiconductor chip in your videos :)

[@AndreasSpiess]

Me too!

[@behnamrasti7486]

thanks it was helpful for me

[@AndreasSpiess]

You are welcome!

[@RobertLugg]

Great comparison. Because there are so many stm32 variants it would be interesting to compare others. For instance for the same price as esp32, are there stm32 boards with WIFI and Bluetooth and a floating point number?

[@AndreasSpiess]

No STM32 with WiFi is currently supported by the Arduino IDE :-(

[@Ramucho25]

Very interesting video. Many thanks. Have you ever considered testing Teensy boards to make a comparison ? They also used Arduino IDE to be programmed and are good boards too. Regards.

[@frankrivers4653]

I'm a huge fan of Teensy boards too. Their latest one, the Teensy 4.0 (and 4.1) they claim use the fastest microcontroller currently available, 600MHz! Hold onto your hat.

[@bobdoritique7347]

Merci andreas. Very interesting.

[@AndreasSpiess]

Glad you liked it!

[@wm6h]

Espressif provides a DSP library for the ESP32 and I was surprised at the speed of their floating point math. If only the ADC worked better. I use the DACs to make sound. You can control the volume better in software than with the Arduino pwm method. Not sure if the STMs have a DAC. I can’t see starting any new project without wireless built-in. Even if I don’t use it initially. Thanks for the videos Andreas.

[@AndreasSpiess]

Also here most of my projects use Wi-Fi...

[@1828fernando]

Great video!!! Can you compare both microcontrollers with native language??

[@AndreasSpiess]

C++ is native enough for me...

[@kapdivyang]

Nice video 👌

[@AndreasSpiess]

Thanks

[@Promilus1984]

Comparison of ESP32 with really old Cortex-M3 based STM32F1 proved bluepill is pretty decent hw. Blackpill is even faster. Usually there's nearly 50% performance gain just by using higher clock rate and STM32F4 does have integrated FPU as well so doesn't suffer such penalty as STM32F1. Both flash and ram are significantly bigger as well than old F1 and architecture is based on Cortex-M4 so with additional dsp instructions. That makes it pretty big improvement. I hope you will be so kind to repeat tests once you get hold on STM32F411 based black pill :)

[@AndreasSpiess]

You are right. But I think, speed and flash size are not real limitations for most makers. This is why I did not focus on those features. The FPU is a game changer if you need it. This is why I mentioned it. I have no plans for the moment, but this easily can change ;-)

[@fernando7517]

Thank you!

[@AndreasSpiess]

You're welcome!

[@georgegu3374]

availability of libraries, documentations, and example projects are crucial. price is probably the least of concern, unless you plan for mass production.

[@AndreasSpiess]

The Maker community is quite price sensitive, I think. Maybe because of the cheap Chinese prices in the past

[@muflah]

It was hard for me to convince my co-workers to look at esp32. Earlier they were using stm32 with esp8266 in master/slave configuration. Now the go-to choice is esp32 for most projects.

[@AndreasSpiess]

If you need connectivity, the ESP32 is for sure the better choice.

[@LWiacko]

Thank you

[@AndreasSpiess]

You're welcome

[@rcpoisond]

Regarding ESP32 ADC, have you tried measuring using battery? A quick test shows that I get very stable values when running my ESP32 from a battery and measuring the battery via a voltage divider compared running/measuring from a DPH5005. Maybe the noise is because the ADCs have a much lower sampling time and thus pick up the power supply noise?

[@AndreasSpiess]

Battery is always good to reduce noise. I used USB for all my tests. Also reducing the sample rate helps a lot. Did you check the linearity?

[@rcpoisond]

@@AndreasSpiess 'Plotted' a graph a while backand it matches what other people found. it's mostly linear between 0.3 and 3V. Of course since I did it manually it's low resolution. Currently hacking my DPH so I can automate stuff like this ^^

[@joakinsa]

Great video as usual! You should definitely check out the Teensy 4.1, I think it is the fastest on the Arduino market right now (600MHz) and it also have an Ethernet phy on board. Unfortunately it doesn't have an RJ45 connector populated...

[@St0RM33]

That MCU is a beast and offers much more I/O it's just they are not fanned out

[@AndreasSpiess]

The Teensy seems to be a different class and probably only for specialties where you do not want to use a Linux system... I am not sure I will cover it on this channel.

[@joakinsa]

@@AndreasSpiess I wouldn't compare it to a Linux computer but I get what you're refering to. It's not ESP-cheap and it doesn't have the felxibility of a WiFi connection. I just thought that would be great comparing both boards. By the way the Teensy 4.0 or 4.1 are on the same level as some NUCLEO boards that you mentioned on the video. Thank you for your awesome work!

[@jpjude68]

if i remember correctly, (from forun/errata sheets), the stm32's may have trouble with the ADC due to the integrated PLL which is used to generate the cpu's 72MHz from a simple 8MHz source. Also, it depends how the micocontroller is set at startup : the default configuration is 8MHz cpu clock without PLL.

[@AndreasSpiess]

Good information. I did not know.

[@saeedkizzy]

I am a big fan of STM32 family I use IAR tool for compiler, embOS, or freeRTOS for RTOS library and also standard library provided by ST semiconductor. also, stm32F7 has higher freq and also floating-point support and pin-compatibility in same packages also is a useful feature.

[@AndreasSpiess]

Thank you for sharing your experience. Next time I try to use at least an F4 chip...

[@fullsolutionslab]

Dear Andreas. As you told us in another video from you, you are a true swiss biker :) and I dont mean a bicycle-biker but a motorcycle biker! because I'm a Swiss biker too, it would be cool if you can make a motorcycle project. For example to collect multiple data by riding like speed, real-time, position (GPS), temperature, humidity, pressure, angle of the motorcycle, acceleration, break way (how long it takes), distance from the wheels to the chassis (to record if the street is rough), power consumtion an so on. then collect all the data in an excel sheet and do some machine learning to evaluate your driving style and to see if your driving style is good or not. then of course with real time online update with a GSM module and connect all sensors to each other by wifi or something similar like BT. The whole system could be controlled via a voice regonition interface or a gesture sensor and all data could be displayed on a TFT display or maybe a Nextion. And to round up everything an ESP32-Cam could record everything on your way. What do you think? I'm creating something similar at the moment, but it would be realy cool to see how you would do a project like this ;) I hope you stay healthy and keep corona free :o) kind regards, delf from Bern

[@AndreasSpiess]

As you might know, I am an old man and therefore I own a Harley: So most of the things you want to measure are not of interest to me anymore ;-) The only thing I measure is fun per time... So you need a younger, more ambitious guy for such a project. BTW: I have a Hero on my bike to keep the impressions of our journeys.

[@iforce2d]

Many of those things could be recorded pretty well by just slapping an Ardupilot board on :)

[@fullsolutionslab]

​@@AndreasSpiess Come on Andreas, you are not an old man yet. Take a look on all miracles you are doing, inventing and sharing with us. I think because of your grey hears you look older than you are ;o) I'm just joking :) I can fully understand, that you arent interessted in a motorcycle data capture project. Thats ok. The reason, why I have proposed this project is, because I miss sometimes some realistic applications in your nearly perfect video's. Everytime you explain very complicated stuff so good, that even the biggest noob can understand what you are teaching. The part, that you are allready doing for long time has nothing on it that I could do critics on it. But unfortunely I often have not enough ideas how to use your content in real life. Maybe if you like you could make a project with a real life application/use. You have done a lot of LoRa instructions and presentations. Some of your LoRa instructions i have successfully achieved. Now I have a LoRa Gateway and some working LoRa modules. But what can I do now with them? For what should or could I use it? Very nice to have, but till now useless for me :) But I had a lot of fun to replicate your instructions.It was very cool ;) Yeah, maybe you have more ideas than me for the future. I hope you stay healthy and I wish you only the best :) Kind regards

[@AndreasSpiess]

I agree that I often leave the imagination to my viewers. But this is how I am built. My firm belief is, that the wish is the first thing in a project, especially in hobby. I have quite a few videos where I show how I use it (for example the hacked garage door opener below the saddle on my Harley). But often I only want to spark the imagination of my viewers. LoRaWAN is a special case because it is a technology with a lot of enthusiasm but not a lot of applications for the average Maker. I liked it because I am a HAM operator and love RF stuff. I also thought I can help a lot of people with my knowledge in these areas.

[@olafschermann1592]

Great comparison. In my opinion I take a stm32 blue pill because it is cheaper than an original Arduino or atmel avr mega. It is priced as the ATtiny. If you compare it to ESP32 I would compare blackpill F4 which has much more performance than F1 bluepill. If I need WiFi it is an easy decision. Thank you for pointing out how cheap ESP32 mini has become. If price matters, did you know that there is an STM8 which costs almost nothing (below 1$) ?

[@AndreasSpiess]

You are right with the F4. I will look at it in one of my next videos.

[@khomo12]

Thank you!👍👍👍

[@AndreasSpiess]

My pleasure!

[@stefkpl]

@15:04 floating point is better on ESP32 because STM32 tested was a cortex M3 mcu @72Mhz (ESP32 run @240Mhz). If you use a black pill, I think the result will be better. It's cortex M4 @ 100Mhz but the price is closer to the ESP32.

[@AndreasSpiess]

You are right. But as I said, I had none available. Maybe later...

[@kanapkazpasztetem]

Did you have a look at the Nucleo boards? I've bought one few years ago but didn't really get into STM, it is hard to beat a generic uno/leonardo for quick testing (like when you just want to test some new sensors) and now if I'm going to create some device the wireless connectivity always on the table in some sort so the ESP already having wifi/BT seems like a better choice. The STMs for sure seem to be great if they fit your application but my applications don't fit STMs 😅

[@AndreasSpiess]

I once used a nucleo board for testing TOF sensors. It was much bigger and, if I remember, also much more expensive.

[@gacherumburu9958]

👍👌 thanks for the info..

[@AndreasSpiess]

You are welcome!

[@rafaelcabelo6616]

Nice video, plz make a video about STM8.

[@AndreasSpiess]

I have no such plans. To retro for me...

[@nicolaw6829]

I am a bit confused about the code on @11:38, and I think that this might not actually be adequate as integer benchmark. On each iteration, you set a pin as output, then you toggle it, then you set it as input (I think without any PU/PD), and you read it 3 times. If it is high, then you perform a multiplication (single cycle in a CM3), otherwise a remainder operation (the division takes 2-12 cycles on CM3). This code has some issues in my opinion: 1) If the pin is left floating, then it might perform randomly divisions or multiplications, depending on external noise and board layout. 2) Instead, if you force externally a logic level using a pull-up/pull-down resistor, then you are not actually getting the integer performance, as, for instance, the multiplication (and probably the division too) is much faster than the "digitalRead/Write" and "pinMode", functions, as they have a lot of overhead. I think that in this case you are just measuring how optimized is the bsp for a particular board instead. This might explain why a Cortex M3 at 84 MHz (Arduino 2) is more than 2 times slower than a Cortex M3 at 72 MHz (Maple)... (different flash caches on the STM32 and ATSAM3X8E might impact on the speed, but I would not expect a factor 2).

[@AndreasSpiess]

You are right and I should have corrected this if statement. But I wanted to keep it the same as in the first video. Also because it was not very important for me. Next time I will try to use a better sketch like calculating primes or so.