Clarifications regarding the BLE drama in ESP32-Arduino 3.3.0+

[afpineda]

Warning

Please, read.
The situation explained here affects the future of this project.

Relevant facts

• Espressif chips have support for Bluetooth Low Energy via two stacks: Bluedroid and NimBLE.
  This support is available in the underlying ESP-IDF API.

• However, Arduino-ESP32 makes the choice for you,
  as is this is required to build the Arduino core for ESP32 chips.

• Prior to the core version 3.3.0, the choice was Bluedroid for all boards.

• Starting with version 3.3.0, the choice is NimBLE for all boards except "pure" ESP32, which sticks to Bluedroid.

• The developers announced that starting with version 4.0.0, the choice will be NimBLE for all boards without exception.

• The h2zero/NimBLE-Arduino library (used by this project) wraps the NimBLE stack for all boards regardless of the core version.

• This project lets you choose which wrapper to use for BLE connectivity: the h2zero wrapper or the built-in Arduino-ESP32 wrapper. This was a precaution against bugs. In practice, this meant that you could choose which stack to use, but this possibility is gone starting with core version 3.3.0.

• In previous development cycles, it has been proven that:

  • Both wrappers showed bugs affecting this project.

  • The ESP32-Arduino wrapper has been highly unreliable,
    no matter which BLE stack it is based on.
    At the time of writing, this wrapper does not work despite my efforts to find a workaround.

• Having a external dependency with both wrappers is a maintenance nightmare.

Consequences for this project

• Bluedroid is not available anymore. If there are bugs in the underlying NimBLE stack, there is no workaround.
• There is no point in maintaining two implementations if they are based on the same stack (NimBLE).
• The situation with the Arduino core is desperate, and I don't want to waste any more of my time with third-party shoddy code.
• However, there is also a good opportunity: starting with core version 4.0.0, I could get rid of both wrappers by implementing BLE connectity directly on the NimBLE stack, as it will be available in the underlying ESP-IDF API. This is not a promise, as I have no idea about how NimBLE works right now.

[afpineda]

This situation is now addressed in version 7.7.9.
Implementing HID on the NimBLE stack (without a wrapper) was easier than expected.
h2zero/NimBLE-Arduino is still supported.
When the Arduino core version 4.0.0. is released I will decide whether to maintain that support or not.
Please do not misunderstand me. It is a fantastic library, but I require maximum control over the source code to ensure that this project survives in the long term.