My first ESP32 project: from nothing to building something real

Tanay Doshi — Sun, 12 Apr 2026 05:41:30 +0000

This is my first electronics project. I’m documenting the journey as I learn, starting from basics and slowly building something real.

I didn’t start by building a Spotify controller.

I started with just an ESP32 and honestly no idea what I was doing.

At first I was thinking of getting a Raspberry Pi. It felt like the obvious option. But it was expensive, and I wasn’t even sure if I would continue this for long.

So I went with an ESP32 instead. At that point I didn’t even have any basic components. No breadboard, no jumper wires, nothing. Just the ESP32.

So I started with the only thing I could do, the onboard LED. I turned it on and off. Then made it blink in different patterns. After that I figured out how to control it from my phone using WiFi. That was probably the first time it felt like I was doing something real.

The next day I got some basic components, LEDs, resistors, a breadboard and some wires. After that things started getting more interesting.

I tried a few small things just to understand how everything works. Changing LED brightness using PWM, using a temperature sensor to trigger LEDs, simple stuff like that. Nothing very advanced, but it helped me get comfortable with how hardware and code work together.

While doing all this, I kept thinking about one thing. I listen to music almost every time I ride my bike, and controlling it from my phone is always annoying. Gloves, unlocking the phone, switching tracks, it just breaks the flow.
I wanted something physical. Something I can use without looking.
A knob for volume.

A button for play and pause.

A small screen to show what’s playing.

That’s when this stopped being random experimenting and became something I really wanted to build. The goal was simple, build a media controller that I can actually use. I just didn’t realise at that time how complicated it was going to get.

I’ll write about the actual build in the next part.

If you’ve built something similar or have ideas, I’d love to hear.

DEV Community: Tanay Doshi

My first ESP32 project: from nothing to building something real