I thought there may be a problem with PWM on ESP32-S3, which I could also not get working. So I tried this code on ESP32-C3, it works just fine. It really looks like it is a PWM problem after all.
#include <Adafruit_NeoPixel.h>
#define PIN 8 // ESP32-C3 built-in RGB led
#define NUMPIXELS 1
Adafruit_NeoPixel pixels (NUMPIXELS, PIN, NEO_GRB + NEO_KHZ800);
#define DELAYVAL 500
void setup () {
Serial.begin (115200);
Serial.printf (" PIN %i\n", PIN);
//pinMode(pin, OUTPUT);
pixels.begin();
pixels.clear();
for(int i=0; i<NUMPIXELS; i++) {
pixels.setPixelColor(i, pixels.Color (100, 50, 200));
pixels.show();
delay(2000);
}
}
void loop () {
}