Embedded Rust Books for Beginners (Free and Open Source)

Astra Kernel — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 11:54:35 +0000

If you're looking for Embedded Rust books or want to learn Embedded Rust, I've put together a collection of free and open source books aimed at beginners and hobbyists.

When I first started learning Embedded Rust, I found lots of excellent resources, but they were spread across documentation, blog posts, examples, datasheets, and GitHub repositories. It was often difficult to know what to learn first and how everything fit together.

That's why I started writing my own notes.

Over time, those notes grew into a collection of books. Each book focuses on a different development board, but they all share the same goal: explain concepts step by step, build practical projects, and help you understand how things work instead of simply copying code.

The books are free to read online, and the complete source is available on GitHub.

Which Book Should You Start With?

If you're completely new to Embedded Rust, I recommend starting with the ESP32.

The ESP32 DevKit V1 is inexpensive, widely available, and comes with built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. You can build a wide range of interesting projects without needing much additional hardware, making it a great board for getting started.

If you already own one of the other supported boards, that's perfectly fine too. You can simply start with the corresponding book.

ESP32

Book: https://esp32.implrust.com/

In this book, we use the ESP32 DevKit V1 with Rust to build simple and fun projects. You'll build a light-activated LED using an LDR, measure distance with an ultrasonic sensor, control an LED over Wi-Fi, display text and images on an OLED display, play songs and alarm sounds with a buzzer, control a servo motor, communicate over Bluetooth, work with RFID cards, read and write files on an SD card, and much more.

Raspberry Pi Pico 2

Book: https://pico.implrust.com/

This book teaches Embedded Rust using the Raspberry Pi Pico 2 (RP2350) and is built around the Embassy framework, an asynchronous runtime.

This book also takes a hands-on approach. You'll build practical projects using LEDs, buttons, buzzers, servo motors, ultrasonic sensors, OLED displays, RFID readers, SD cards, and other common modules while learning how to write asynchronous Embedded Rust applications with Embassy.

Raspberry Pi Pico (RP2040)

Book: https://rp2040.implrust.com/

This book follows a similar hands-on approach to the Raspberry Pi Pico 2 book, using the original Raspberry Pi Pico and Pico W.

In addition, the book includes tutorials on the RP2040's Programmable I/O (PIO), where you'll learn to control WS2812 (NeoPixel) LEDs. If you have a Raspberry Pi Pico W, you'll also learn how to connect to a Wi-Fi network, access websites, create a web server, and turn an onboard LED from your web browser.

BBC micro:bit V2

Book: https://mb2.implrust.com/

The BBC micro:bit V2 is a popular board for education, and many people first encounter it through Python or Microsoft's MakeCode.

If you'd like to explore the same hardware using Rust, this book is a great place to start. You'll build projects with the LED matrix, buttons, microphone, speaker, Bluetooth, accelerometer, compass, and temperature sensor without needing a box full of external components.

Rust Embedded Driver (RED)

Book: https://red.implrust.com/

This book teaches you how to write your own Embedded Rust drivers from scratch.

You'll build drivers for devices such as the DHT22 temperature and humidity sensor, MAX7219 LED matrix, DS1307 and DS3231 real-time clocks, and learn how to integrate them with libraries like embedded-graphics.

Along the way, you'll also learn how to test drivers with embedded-hal-mock and write reusable drivers that work across different microcontrollers.

Open Source

All of the books are open source, and the complete source is available on GitHub.

GitHub: http://github.com/ImplFerris

If you find an error, notice something that could be explained better, or would like to contribute, pull requests are always welcome.

The books continue to grow as I learn new things and receive feedback from readers. I hope they make learning Embedded Rust a little easier for anyone getting started.

If you're learning Embedded Rust or planning to get started, I'd love to know which development board you're using. Feel free to leave a comment below.

DEV Community: Astra Kernel