Espressif Systems (SSE: 688018.SH) announces today the launching of its AI voice development kit, ESP32-S3-BOX, which provides a platform for developing the control of smart devices with offline and online voice assistants. ESP32-S3-BOX is ideal for developing AIoT applications with reconfigurable AI voice functions, such as smart speakers, and IoT devices that achieve human-computer voice interaction directly. In addition, ESP32-S3-BOX combines a touch screen controller, various sensors, an infrared controller and a smart gateway. With all this functionality and its product-ready form factor, ESP32-S3-BOX will help you save significant R&D expenses, and shorten the development cycle of your product.

ESP32-S3-BOX is an AI voice development kit that is based on Espressif’s ESP32-S3 Wi-Fi + Bluetooth 5 (LE) SoC, with AI capabilities. In addition to ESP32-S3’s 512KB SRAM, ESP32-S3-BOX comes with 16MB of QSPI flash and 8MB of Octal PSRAM. ESP32-S3-BOX is also equipped with a variety of peripherals, such as a 2.4-inch display with a 320x240 resolution, a capacitive touch screen, a dual microphone, a speaker, and two Pmod™-compatible headers which allow for the extensibility of the hardware. ESP32-S3-BOX also uses a Type-C USB connector that provides 5 V of power input, while also supporting serial and JTAG debugging, as well as a programming interface; all through the same connector.

ESP32-S3-BOX is designed to take advantage of ESP32-S3’s AI acceleration capabilities, improved external memory interface and multiple peripherals. Application use cases, such as online and offline voice assistants, voice-enabled devices, HMI touch-screen devices, control panels and multi-protocol gateways can be easily realised by also using Espressif’s rich set of SDKs and AIoT solutions . More specifically, ESP-S3-BOX can run Espressif’s Amazon-qualified Audio Front-End solution, Alexa for IoT SDK, the ESP-Skainet offline voice assistant, and the LVGL-based HMI solution, in addition to other SDKs, too, such as ESP-DL, and ESP-ADF. Espressif’s complete AIoT platform, ESP RainMaker®, can be used with ESP32-S3-BOX for configuring GPIOs and offline commands, while providing control via phone apps and/or a voice assistant. With such rich hardware and software features, as well as a product-ready form factor, Espressif envisions that ESP-S3-BOX will significantly simplify product development for its customers.

Our blogpost about ESP32-S3-BOX illustrates some of the most characteristic use cases that are currently possible, and also discusses the board’s potential extensibility.

Furthermore, Espressif provides a number of technical resources relating to ESP32-S3-BOX, including the hardware reference design and user guides. These will facilitate our customers to prototype their products with ESP32-S3-BOX, and then customize them quickly, reducing time-to-market and engineering costs.

If you are interested in ordering ESP32-S3-BOX, please go to Amazon in case you are a US-based customer, or to AliExpress and Adafruit from other parts of the world. If you want to know more about the product, please contact our customer support team, who will try and assist you as soon as possible.