Product Discontinued: ESP32-S3 Box about willow HOT 4 CLOSED

I think both of those devices were prototypes, and discontinued in favor of the ESP32-S3-Box-3, which I don't believe is discontinued. This is also noted on the willow website :)
https://heywillow.io/hardware/

from willow.

I didn't realize there was yet another variant (-3) on the market. That certainly eliminates the alarm. I'm still concerned however that the new variant is also Out of Stock, as the previous ones often were too. I wonder if there is any point in asking if there are any backup plans, in case they rarely or never return to stock? I only don't want to see this project fade away because the hardware is difficult to obtain.

from willow.

Espressif has said they are ramping up production, and sites like mouser show more units on the way. Also, HA also uses this same hardware for voice assistant satellites; tech like microWakeWord use the Box-3 🙂. We also have users in the community working on their own open source hardware based on the ESP32-S3 chip, and willow really can support anything that is supported by the ESP-IDF framework with some firmware tweaks, so don't think there is any reason to be alarmed 🙂

from willow.

Glad to hear it, thanks for assuaging my concerns then! I'll close this ticket out.

from willow.