Support ESP32-S3 USB Host

[marchingband]

Related area

I would like to have tinyUSB support USB Host on ESP32-S3

Hardware specification

ESP32-S3

Is your feature request related to a problem?

I have USB MIDI Host working under esp-idf, but I need to port my project to Arduino, and TinyUSB does not yet support ESP32-S3 host.

Describe the solution you'd like

Add host support, and ideally a MIDI example :)

I have checked existing issues, dicussion and documentation

• I confirm I have checked existing issues, dicussion and documentation.

[shufps]

Would like to have the same, I hope to get USB CDC ACM (virtual com port) devices running on a ESP32 as USB Host.

Preferably with Micropython, since Micropython uses tinyusb, I thought would be a good idea to look here if Host actually is supported 🫣

[tore-espressif]

Hi guys, in case you are still interested in USB Host applications, we have it supported on ESP32-S2 and ESP32-S3 in esp-idf

Here's some documentation https://docs.espressif.com/projects/esp-idf/en/stable/esp32s3/api-reference/peripherals/usb_host.html

And some CDC examples https://github.com/espressif/esp-idf/tree/master/examples/peripherals/usb/host/cdc

[marchingband]

@tore-espressif Thanks, yes I use that when I am on esp-idf. I have some projects that are on Arduino (ex. https://www.sparkfun.com/products/21307), and it would be very valuable to have USB Host available in both frameworks. Is there a brief way to explain why this is especially challenging for the developers? The question comes up fairly frequently and I never know what to say.

[niklasekstrom]

Hi guys, in case you are still interested in USB Host applications, we have it supported on ESP32-S2 and ESP32-S3 in esp-idf

Hi Tomas,

Does your usb stack support connecting a hub, and then connecting multiple HID devices to that hub (e.g., keyboard and mouse)?

I see in this directory https://github.com/espressif/esp-idf/tree/master/components/usb that there are some files related to hubs, but I can't find any information about if hubs are actually supported.

[tore-espressif]

Is there a brief way to explain why this is especially challenging for the developers?

I checked with Arduino team and this is what I got: It should be technically possible, there are two approaches

1. Use Arduino as esp-idf component, then you can easily use USB Host Library that is part of esp-idf. Here are some resources about this option:
   https://docs.espressif.com/projects/arduino-esp32/en/latest/esp-idf_component.html
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8w3MmsZBa9o&ab_channel=EspressifSystems
2. You can write your own wrapper that would enable you to use USB Host Library in esp-idf. The USB Library is rather big, so this is not a trivial thing, plus it is not documented properly. You can ask in the arduino project if you want to know more

Does your usb stack support connecting a hub, and then connecting multiple HID devices to that hub (e.g., keyboard and mouse)?

External HUB support is work in progress in esp-idf, it should be ready beginning of October

[sashahilton00]

Is there any plan to implement this in tinyusb? I'm not too familiar with the inner workings, wondering if host in tinyusb is likely or whether the only option is esp-idf for the foreseeable.

[hathach]

already implemented, you can try with stock host example with _freertos or host/device_info

[marchingband]

@hathach are you saying it is implemented in a way that works on esp32-s3 in Arduino?
When I opened this issue it was intended to be WRT Arduino support ...

[hathach]

it is implemented by tinyusb in host controller driver (hcd). I am not sure which frame/lib you use with Arduino, but you can use the existing tinyusb host API to communicate with device.

[marchingband]

In the past I have used Adafruit_TinyUSB_Arduino.
Will this host controller driver be available there?
If not, what frame/lib do you recommend for using tinyusb with Arduino for ESP32-S3?
I am specifically interested in USB MIDI Host.
Thanks!

[hathach]

For Arduino, it depends on arduino-esp32 core, it may start up initizliaing usb stack as device mode in which case tusb stack need to be teardown/re-initialized to host mode (api may not available yet). Sum up, To use Adafruit_TinyUSB you need to make sure

• CFG_TUH_ENABLED = 1
• usb is initialized

[marchingband]

@hathach wow that is incredible news thank you!
I would love to see some Arduino examples sketches.
Is there an issue at Arduino-ESP32 I can follow to know when your updates get compiled into core?

[hathach]

@hathach wow that is incredible news thank you! I would love to see some Arduino examples sketches. Is there an issue at Arduino-ESP32 I can follow to know when your updates get compiled into core?

I haven't paid attention to arduino-esp32 lately, but It is moving fast. My CI HIL pool actually test esp32-p4 host function each PR https://github.com/hathach/tinyusb/blob/master/test/hil/tinyusb.json#L10 same dwc2 as s3 (with different usbip configuration). You can try to run stock host examples with s3, it should work.

[marchingband]

That is a little beyond my skills, but I have opened an issue with core, asking for example Arduino code.
Thank you very much for your help :)
espressif/arduino-esp32#10978