ESP32 vs ESP8266 - latency issue

[rjblake]

I'm considering replacing a number of my ESP8266 devices with ESP32 as I was under the impression that I'd see better performance (and improved WiFi reception - but that's another discussion). However, I've noticed that the network latency of the ESP32 devices is significantly worse than the ESP8266. In my case,

ESP8266 - Min 2.2ms, Avg 19.5ms, Max 44.1msESP32 - (Signal -75dBm RX/TX Rate 12.0/14.2 Mbps)
ESP32 -Min 6.1ms, Avg 94.8ms, Max 120.7ms - (Signal -44dBm RX/TX Rate 72.2/72/2 Mbps)

Overall, the signal is much better on the ESP32, but latency is 3-4x that of ESP8266. From what I could determine, it seems that although the dual-core cpu on the ESP32 is faster than that of the ESP8266, the WiFi stack and networking is less optimised.

Google has the following info:

"in certain scenarios, the ESP32 can exhibit higher latency compared to the ESP8266, particularly when dealing with network-intensive tasks like MQTT or TCP communication. While the ESP32 boasts a dual-core processor and other advancements, it doesn't always translate to faster performance in all areas, especially when compared to the ESP8266's optimized Wi-Fi stack.

Optimized ESP8266 Wi-Fi Stack:
The ESP8266's Wi-Fi stack is specifically optimized for its single-core architecture and simpler setup, which can lead to faster response times in network-related tasks."

I guess my question is "Is this level of latency anything to be concerned about, or will there be little to no impact on Homekit?". Appreciate the thoughts and experiences of others.

[RavenSystem]

Network latency is different, yes. However, talking about HAA firmware, ESP32 latency is caused by the default wifi option Sleep Mode, available only for ESP32, ESP32-C and ESP32-S.

https://github.com/RavenSystem/esp-homekit-devices/wiki/general-configuration#wifi-sleep-mode

If you disable Wifi Sleep Mode, you will see a great latency improvement. ESP8266 has not wifi sleep feature.

About HomeKit latency, I suggest to use Homebench App to determine the Apple Home ecosystem latency, because it is not only a network latency matter; processing and encrypting data add latency too, even more than network latency.