Launcher: Multi-Firmware Switcher for ESP32 Boards

Oct 11, 2026 · 5 min read

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Launcher running on an M5Stack device, showing the main menu with OTA, SD, WUI, CFG and PMan options.

What You Will Build

Launcher turns any supported ESP32 board into a multi-firmware hub. Instead of reaching for a USB cable every time you want to try a different app, Launcher lets you install, boot, and switch firmware images directly on the device — over Wi-Fi, from an SD card, or through a browser-based Web UI.

Once Launcher is flashed, it lives in its own partition at the start of your device's flash memory. On power-on, a brief boot screen appears. Hold the Select button to enter the Launcher menu; press nothing and the last-installed firmware boots automatically. That single workflow covers the full lifecycle of firmware development and experimentation on ESP32 hardware without ever touching a cable.

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What You Need

Hardware

Any board from the supported list works. At the time of writing that includes the entire M5Stack family (Core, Core2, CoreS3, StickC, StickCPlus, StickCPlus2, StickS3, Tab5, Paper, Paper Mono, Paper Color), Lilygo T-Deck Pro, T-Watch Ultra, T-Display S3 Amoled Plus, T-Display P4, and T-Display C5, SeeedStudio XIAO ESP32C5, XIAO ESP32S3 Plus, reTerminal D1001, reTerminal E1001, SenseCAP Indicator, Wio Tracker L2, Waveshare AMOLED watches and LCD boards, Elecrow Crowpanel and ThinkNode devices, XTeink X3 and X4 Pro, the Cheap Yellow Display (CYD), and several Marauder-compatible boards. Check the Releases page for the full and current list.

Optional but recommended: An SDHC SD card, 32 GB or smaller, formatted as FAT32 with an MBR partition scheme. The SD card enables file management, binary downloads, and partition backups. Launcher works without one, but the experience is richer with it.

Software

Choose whichever flashing method suits you:

• A modern web browser (Chrome or Edge) for the online flasher or web.esphome.io
• M5Burner if you already use it for M5Stack devices
• esptool.py for a command-line approach

Typical use cases

How Launcher Works

Launcher occupies a dedicated partition at the beginning of flash. When the device powers on, it checks for a button press during the boot window. If detected, it drops into the Launcher menu. If not, it jumps straight to whatever firmware was last installed in the app partition — behaving like a transparent pass-through to the end user.

From the menu, four core areas handle the main workflows:

• OTA — fetches and flashes .bin files from M5Burner's catalog, raw GitHub links, your own server, or the built-in Web UI. Multi-part binaries (bootloader, partitions, firmware, data) are downloaded and merged at runtime.
• SD — full file manager: create folders, rename, copy, paste, delete, and install .bin files stored locally.
• WUI — starts a Wi-Fi access point and serves a browser-based interface for file management, OTA installs, text-file editing, and NVS key editing.
• PMan — a partition manager that lets you view, create, resize, delete, back up, and restore flash partitions without any external tools.

A serial interface is also available: connect via USB serial, type help, and you can configure Wi-Fi, calibrate a touchscreen, or mirror display axes — handy for devices that lack a keyboard or touchscreen.

Flashing Launcher onto Your Board

Pick the method that fits your setup. All three produce the same result.

Method 1 — Online Flasher (easiest, no install)

Visit https://bmorcelli.github.io/Launcher/, select your board from the list, connect the device via USB, and click Flash. The site handles everything in-browser.

Method 2 — M5Burner

Open M5Burner, search for Launcher, select the entry matching your device, and click Burn.

Method 3 — Manual flash

Download the .bin file from the Releases page for your device. The file is named Launcher-{YourDevice}.bin. You can then flash it using https://web.esphome.io/ in your browser, or use esptool.py from the command line. Refer to the repository for full details on either approach.

Preparing your SD card (optional)

If you want SD card support:

1. Use an SDHC card, 32 GB or smaller.
2. Format it as FAT32. The README recommends Rufus for this.
3. Make sure the partition scheme is MBR, not GPT.
4. Insert the card before powering on.

First boot

1. Power on the device.
2. Press Sel (or Enter, depending on your board) when the Launcher boot screen appears.
3. Navigate to OTA to pull firmware from the online catalog or a URL, or browse your SD card with SD to install a local .bin.
4. Open CFG to adjust brightness, dim timeout, display rotation, and UI color to your liking.

Extending Launcher and Known Limitations

Things worth exploring after the initial setup:

• Keyboard shortcuts — on boards with a physical keyboard, you can bind a specific firmware to a single key and boot it instantly from the main menu.
• Fastboot — on touchscreen and keyboard devices, touching the screen or pressing a key during the boot screen skips the wait and launches firmware immediately.
• Stealthy boot — the 2.10.0 changelog adds an option to hide the Launcher boot screen entirely and only enter Launcher when a specific GPIO button is held. Useful when a device runs a fixed deployment but you still want an escape hatch.
• Firmware update tracking — Launcher can read a downloaded.json file on the SD card, check for newer versions of previously downloaded firmware, and batch-download updates with a single button press.
• NVS editing via WUI — the browser interface lets you read and write NVS keys, which is the practical way to reconfigure UiFlow2 credentials or other app-level settings without reflashing.
• Serial configuration — for headless boards (no display or keyboard), connect over USB serial and type help to see available commands, including wifi add MyNetworkSSID MyN37w0rkPWD as shown in the README.

Known limitations:

• UiFlow 1 does not work with Launcher. It uses an old MicroPython and ESP-IDF distribution that is incompatible.
• M5-Paper Color has a very slow display refresh that makes menu navigation impractical; it works only through the WebUI.
• On e-ink boards using aggressive deep-sleep firmware (CrossInk, CrossPoint, etc.), the default behavior triggers the Launcher boot screen on every wake. The 2.10.0 option to disable deep-sleep triggering addresses this, but configure it carefully on boards without an exposed Reset button.

Facts in this article come from the project's public README and GitHub metadata at the time of writing. Images belong to their respective owners and link back to the original source.