Hardware

Hardware

Item	Requirement
SoC	ESP32-S3 only. Other ESP32 families are not targets.
PSRAM	8 MB octal PSRAM (N16R8 / N8R8). Without PSRAM, Smart Recovery, health checks, destination tests and Service watch report unavailable; routing and the Web UI keep working.
Flash	16 MB on the reference board; two 1920 KiB application slots for safe updates.
Radio	One 2.4 GHz radio shared by the uplink and the access point.
Ethernet	None on typical boards. Optional W5500 module only in the separate experimental build: Ethernet W5500.
microSD	Optional log recorder on GPIO38/39/40 (SDMMC 1-bit).
Power	An independent, reliable supply — especially for the recovery role.

Board reports

Board	Result
ESP32-S3-DevKitC-1 N16R8	Reference board
Freenove ESP32-S3-WROOM N8R8	Community-confirmed (AP, Web UI, setup)
Seeed XIAO ESP32-S3 N8R8	Community-confirmed (AP, direct and DERP data plane)
YD-ESP32-S3 clones	Not working: SoftAP not visible (board-level RF issue)

Board reports come from users and upstream, not from a qualification of every release. Tested a board? Open a hardware report.

Before buying

• Check the module marking (N16R8 / N8R8): PSRAM size and type matter.
• Prefer genuine modules; clones vary in RF and flash quality.
• Keep a way to reflash over USB and a configuration backup.

Full guide: HARDWARE.md.