ESP32 Installation (Wendy Lite)

Wendy Lite is a WebAssembly runtime for ESP32 RISC-V microcontrollers. It lets you write firmware in Swift and deploy it as a .wasm binary to ESP32-C6 and ESP32-C5 devices.

Supported chips: Wendy Lite targets ESP32-C6 and ESP32-C5 (RISC-V). Classic ESP32 (Xtensa) is not supported.

What You'll Need

An ESP32-C6 or ESP32-C5 development board
USB cable for connecting the board to your computer
Wendy CLI installed on your development machine (Developer Machine Setup)
Swift 6.0+ with Embedded Swift WASM support (Developer Machine Setup)

Installing Wendy Lite Firmware

Connect Your Board

Plug your ESP32-C6 or ESP32-C5 board into your computer via USB.

Install the Firmware

Use the wendy CLI to flash the Wendy Lite firmware to your board:

wendy os install

Select ESP32-C6 (or ESP32-C5) when prompted, then select the USB serial port for your board. The CLI will download and flash the Wendy Lite firmware automatically.

Discover Your Device

Once the firmware is flashed, the board will restart and advertise itself over BLE. Run:

wendy discover
wendy device set-default

You should see your ESP32 device appear in the list of discovered devices.

Create a New Project

Use the Wendy CLI to scaffold a new Wendy Lite project:

mkdir blink && cd blink
wendy init

Select ESP32 as the target platform when prompted. This creates a Swift project preconfigured with the WendyLite SDK and the correct build settings for WebAssembly.

Explore the Project Structure

After initialization, you'll have the following structure:

blink/
├── Package.swift
├── wendy.json
└── Sources/
    └── blink/
        └── main.swift

Edit Your App

Open Sources/blink/main.swift and replace the contents with a simple blink example:

import WendyLite

let led = GPIO(pin: 8, mode: .output)

while true {
    led.high()
    Timer.delay(milliseconds: 500)
    led.low()
    Timer.delay(milliseconds: 500)
}

Deploying to the Device

Once your project is set up, deploy it to your ESP32 with a single command:

wendy run

The Wendy CLI compiles your Swift code to WebAssembly and uploads the .wasm binary to the device. You should see the onboard LED start blinking.

Wendy Lite devices advertise themselves as Wendy-XXXX over BLE for WiFi provisioning. You can send WiFi credentials and cloud certificates via the BLE GATT interface, enabling headless setup of devices in the field.

Observability

Wendy Lite supports OpenTelemetry natively. Your application can emit structured logs, metrics, and traces that integrate with the Wendy dashboard alongside your Jetson and Raspberry Pi devices.

import WendyLite

Log.info("Sensor reading", attributes: ["temperature": 23.5, "humidity": 61.2])
Metrics.gauge("temperature", value: 23.5)

Next Steps

Explore the Wendy Lite examples for GPIO, I2C, SPI, BLE, and WiFi demos
Check the Developer Machine Setup for CLI installation
Read the Raspberry Pi 5 Installation or NVIDIA Jetson Installation guides if you also work with larger devices

ESP32 Installation (Wendy Lite)