Control LEDs, Servos and Motors with a Game Controller and ESP32

Go from gaming to operating your own robot vehicle or a robotic arm using your game controller! Today, I’ll show you how to control LEDs, servos, and motors using a game controller connected to an ESP32 via Bluetooth.

We’ll start by wiring up each component to the ESP32, making sure you get a solid grasp on the hardware side of things. Then, we’ll move on to writing an Arduino sketch that will turn your joysticks and buttons into the ultimate control interface, allowing you to handle motors for a responsive robot vehicle, servos for a precise robot arm and trigger other components like LEDs and more.

This ESP32 project builds on a previous tutorial where we learned how to pair a game controller to an ESP32 using the Bluepad32 library. I then showed you how to see the values that your game controller buttons and joysticks produce so we can use those values in this project.

If this is your first time using a game controller with an ESP32, be sure to start there before proceeding:

Recommended Tutorial: Connect Your Game Controller to an ESP32: The Complete Guide

There are some steps you have to go through first like installing board managers and board packages before you can use this Arduino sketch for your ESP32 project. The previous ESP32 game controller tutorial takes you through it all, step-by-step. Then, once you’re done, join us back here!

For everyone else, let’s get started and turn that pile of components into a responsive, gamepad-controlled robot!