The CP210x USB chip turns a USB connection into a regular serial port which allows your computer to establish a serial communication with microcontrollers like the ESP32 or ESP8266. To program or exchange information between your computer and an ESP32/ESP8266 chip, you need to install the CP210x USB to UART Bridge Virtual COM Port drivers. This guide shows to install the drivers in a Windows PC.
We have a similar guide for Mac OS X: Install ESP32/ESP8266 USB Drivers – CP210x USB to UART Bridge
If it’s your first time using an ESP32/ESP8266, it’s probably that if you plug the ESP board into your computer, you don’t see your ESP’s COM port available. This means you don’t have the drivers installed. Take a closer look at the chip next to the voltage regulator on the board and check its name. For this board, it comes with the Silabs CP2102 chip.
For example, the ESP32 DEVKIT V1 DOIT board and many other ESP32 and ESP8266 modules use the CP2102 or the CP2104 chips.
If you install the CP210x drivers as explained in this blog post, you’ll ensure that the USB connection and communication will work for any ESP board that uses those USB chips (starting with ‘CP210’).
Note: another popular USB chip used by many ESP32 and ESP8266 modules is the CH340. Always check the datasheet of your board to make sure you identify the right USB to UART communication chip that’s being used in your board.
Start by downloading the CP210x USB Drivers from the official website. If you are on a Windows PC, you need to download the CP210x Windows Drivers folder highlighted in the image below.
After downloading the CP210x Windows Drivers, right-click the folder and unzip the installation files.
Open the unzipped folder and double-click the CP210xVCPInstaller_x64.exe file to start the installation process.
Follow the installation wizard, click the “Next” button, and agree with the terms of use to complete the installation process.
The CP210x USB drivers have been installed successfully.
Click the search bar.
Search for “Device Manager” and open the control panel:
Having an ESP32/ESP8266 board connected to your Windows PC with a USB cable, under the “Ports” section you should see a device “Silicon Labs CP210x USB to UART Bridge (COM5)” (or with a different COM port number).
To program the ESP32/ESP8266 board with Arduino IDE, remember the COM port number, in our case it’s 5, COM5.
In the Arduino IDE, select your ESP32/ESP8266 board COMX Port, as shown earlier. Ours is COM5 Serial Port (USB).
That’s it! You should now be able to see the COMX Serial Port of the ESP32/ESP8266 in Arduino IDE. You can upload a new code to your ESP board to test it.
We hope you’ve found this quick guide useful. Want to learn more about the ESP32? We recommend the following ESP32 tutorials to get started:
If you’re serious about learning about the ESP32, we recommend taking a look at our best-selling eBook:
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Thanks for reading.