Automating Wi-Fi setup testing on the ESP32
6 hours ago
- Wi-Fi setup is the first and most critical step for connected products, so it must work reliably every time.
- Groundrun provides a hardware-in-the-loop rig where an ESP32-C6 board and an Android phone are both connected via USB for testing.
- Five Wi-Fi commissioning methods are tested: Bluetooth Low Energy, Soft AP, captive portal, SmartConfig (ESPTouch v2), and WPS.
- A simple smartphone app and ESP32 firmware were developed with Claude to exercise each of the five setup methods.
- User flows for every method were mapped in Groundrun's flow builder and can be run interactively or as CI regression tests.
- Timing breakdown shows flash and boot cost 22–24 seconds across methods, except SmartConfig at 37 seconds because it uses a second board.
- Mechanism time varies widely: Soft AP is nearly 13 times slower than WPS, while SmartConfig and WPS both finish in under 15 seconds.
- Testing uncovered quirks: captive portal windows close quickly, Bluetooth/Soft AP have pop-up delays, WPS needs no app, and SmartConfig is occasionally slow with rare failures.
- The conclusions emphasize that Wi-Fi setup must be the most solid mechanism and that Groundrun enables automated, hardware-in-the-loop testing.