(SOLVED) ESP32 Wifi not seen by phones - ELEGOO Smart Robot Car v4

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RESOLVED ... after some late-night sleuthing. It shouldn't have been this hard.

My setup: Linux Mint Debian Edition 5, Arduino IDE 1.8.13

Steps I took to resolve issues I encountered:

  1. Per the document found here: Camera module FAQ.pdf - Google Drive, I downloaded the ESP32_CameraServer arduino source. In step 5 of the document, where it recommends to select esp32 v. 1.0.4, I instead selected 1.0.6. In step 6 of the document, I randomly selected the source in channel 9.
  2. Upon attempt to compile, I got an error that it could not find esp_camera.h.
    In file included from ...path_to_source.../program for camera module/channel 9/ESP32_CameraServer_AP_20220120/ESP32_CameraServer_AP_20220120.ino:10:0: CameraWebServer_AP.h:12:24: fatal error: esp_camera.h: No such file or directory #include "esp_camera.h" ^ compilation terminated. exit status 1 esp_camera.h: No such file or directory
    This was resolved by ensuring all settings detailed in step 8 of the previous document were selected.
    Namely: Setting Board = "ESP32 Dev Module", Partition Scheme = "Huge APP (3MB No OTA/1MB SPIFFS)", PSRAM = "Enabled"
  3. Compile error related to python PATH
    exec: "python": executable file not found in $PATH on Arduino IDE
    Resolved following the solution found here: macos - exec: "python": executable file not found in $PATH on Arduino IDE - Stack Overflow
    where I needed to execute sed -i -e 's/=python /=python3 /g' ~/Library/Arduino15/packages/esp32/hardware/esp32/*/platform.txt.
    Another solution might be to create a symlink: ln -s /usr/bin/python3 /usr/bin/python
  4. And yet another compiler error, related to python: ModuleNotFoundError: No module named ‘serial’. Solution found here: https://forum.arduino.cc/t/modulenotfounderror-no-module-named-serial. In my case, not being a python developer, I had to install pip (sudo apt install pip) before I could execute the solution: sudo pip3 install pyserial.

After all that, my phone was able to connect to the camera, and I could control with the EleRobot app.

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