[stragies]

With ESP32, always regard the vendor firmware only as proof-of-electrical-functioning. The first thing you should do with any ESP32 device after basic function test, is install ESPHome on it. If that's not possible, buy something different, where you can replace vendor fw.

[noodlesUK]

Oh, I completely agree for IoT devices. When I was first reading the article I feared that the issue was something burned into the bluetooth radio binary blob, or something at the hardware level that would not have mattered whether you were running esphome or not. Upon a little deeper inspection, it doesn't sound like that's the case.

[Eduard]

Espressif chips such as the ESP32 family are used for so many more applications than just smart home devices, which ESPHome targets.

e. g. it doesn't make sense to install ESPHome on an ESP32-based drone :)