Espressif ESP32 WiFi & Bluetooth processor is pretty versatile, and you could connect any ESP32 board to any cloud services with some efforts. But to make things even easier Espressif Systems worked with Microsoft and Google to release versions of ESP32 boards specifically designed to connect to Microsoft Azure IoT or Google Cloud IoT core. Meet ESP32-Azure IoT Kit and ESP32-DevKitC Google Cloud IoT.

ESP32-Azure IoT Kit

Hardware specifications:

Wireless Module – ESP32-WROVER-B WiFi and Bluetooth module

Storage – MicroSD card socket

Display – 0.96” blue and yellow OLED display driven by SSD1306 I2C driver chip

Sensors InvenSense MPU6050 motion sensor NXP MAG3110 magnetometer FBM320 barometer STMicro HTS221 humidity & temperature sensor ROHM BH1750FVI light sensor

Expansion – 16-pin header

Debugging – USB to UART bridge for serial debugging & programming

Misc – Reset button, user button, 2x charge LED’s, 2x user LED’s, 1x passive buzzer

Power Supply – 5V via micro USB port; 3-pin header for LiPo battery; charging circuit

Dimensions – 75 x 54 mm

ESP32-Azure IoT Kit comes with out of the box Microsoft Azure IoT connectivity, and “enable smart network configuration, cloud platform access and sensor data acquisition”. The product page has some hardware documentation, but currently very little information about software. I can only assume it come preloaded with firmware built from ESP Azure IoT SDK available on Github.

ESP32-Azure IoT kit can be purchased on Mouser for $35.

ESP32-DevKitC Google Cloud IoT

While AFAIK ESP32-Azure IoT Kit is a complete new board, ESP32-DevKitC GoogleCloud IoT relies on the time-tested ESP32-DevKitC released a couple of years ago, and qualified for Amazon AWS.

Hardware specifications:

Wireless Module – ESP32-WROOM-32D WiFi and Bluetooth module

Expansion – 2x breadboard-friendly headers with PWM, ADC, DAC, I2C, I2S, SPI, etc.

Debugging – USB-to-UART bridge for serial debugging and programming

Misc – Reset (EN) & boot buttons, power LED

Power Supply – 5V via micro USB portThe board comes pre-loaded with firmware allowing Google Cloud IoT connectivity and built from ESP-Google-IoT framework. You’ll find additional resources on the product page.

ESP32-DevKitC Google Cloud IoT is also listed on Mouser where it is sold for $10. There’s no reference to Google Cloud IoT Core on the reseller website, so it looks to be a standard ESP32-DevKitC-32D board, not necessarily pre-loaded with firmware connecting to Google Cloud IoT core out of the box.