Espressif Systems is showcasing its products at CES 2026, including two interesting upcoming parts: the ESP32-E22 Wi-Fi 6E tri-band SoC and the ultra-low-power ESP32-H21 Bluetooth LE MCU for battery-powered devices.
Espressif Systems has been teasing an upcoming Wi-Fi 6E SoC for several months, but so far, there have been very few details. Once tipped that the ESP32-E22 tri-band Wi-Fi 6E SoC was demonstrated at CES 2026, I headed over to X and noticed tks posted a few interesting photos from the exhibition.
Here’s what we know about the ESP32-E22 so far:
- CPU – Dual-core RISC-V processor at up to 500 MHz
- Memory – 1 MB (no optional PSRAM)
- Wireless
- Tri-band 2.4/5/6GHz Wi-Fi 6E, 160 MHz channel bandwidth, 2×2 MIMO; tested with iperf; up to 2.1 Gbps physical thoughput
- Dual-mode Bluetooth 5.4/6.0 (LE + BR/EDR)
- I/Os – 41x GPIO
- Host interfaces – PCIe 2.0, USB FS OTG, SDIO 3.0 (when used as a co-processor)
- Package – 9x 9 mm
The board demonstrated at CES 2026 comes with two external antennas, two USB-C ports, and various I/Os similar to other boards from the company. Maybe it will be launched as the ESP32-E22-DevKitC-1 board once available in a few months (or next year?).
There’s no code on the Espressif Systems GitHub account specific to the ESP32-E22. If we perform a search on GitHub as a whole, there are plenty of results, but that’s for an older ESP32 E22 LoRa board…
[Update: there will be an M.2 2230 module too:
]
The ESP32-H21 was discussed at the developer conference a few months ago, but I was only made aware of it a few days ago. I could not find any photos of the chip or board, but we do know it’s a low-power Bluetooth LE SoC for battery-powered devices that may compete against Nordic Semi parts such as the nRF5340 or earlier nRF52840.
ESP32-H21 highlights:
- CPU – Single-core RISC-V @ 96 MHz
- Memory – 320KB RAM
- Wireless
- Bluetooth LE and 802.14.5 (Zigbee/Thread)
- Integrated RF
- I/Os – 19x GPIO
- Power
- Ultra-low-power
- DC-DC converter to allow the chip to run at lower voltages
It’s optimized for IoT nodes, wearables, and presence-sensing applications. There’s already some code for it on GitHub.
Finally, the ESP32-H4, which was introduced about two years ago with two RISC-V cores and support for 802.15.4 and Bluetooth 5.4 LE wireless connectivity, is said to have been officially added to the company’s portfolio and is suitable for battery-powered wireless audio devices, sensors, and Matter-powered Smart Home devices. I still can’t find a product page on the company’s website.
If we look into the latest investor’s report, we also notice that Wi-Fi 7 and 32-bit multi-core (meaning quad-core and more) SoCs are mentioned, but I guess that will be for 2027 or beyond. Let’s wait for the ESP32-E22 and ESP32-H21 in the meantime 🙂
Thanks to moiety for the tip.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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