ESPHome 2026.3.0: Socket abstraction layer devirtualized

[bdraco]

Summary

ESPHome 2026.3.0 devirtualizes the socket abstraction layer (PR #14398). socket::Socket and socket::ListenSocket are now concrete type aliases instead of virtual base classes. Code using std::unique_ptr<socket::Socket> with virtual dispatch will need to update.

Current usage

Uses std::unique_ptr<socket::Socket> for UDP sockets and calls socket::socket_ip_loop_monitored(), bind(), recvfrom() via virtual dispatch.

Recommended migration

• socket::Socket is now a type alias for the platform-specific socket implementation — std::unique_ptr<socket::Socket> still works
• socket::socket_ip() and socket::socket_ip_loop_monitored() still return std::unique_ptr<socket::Socket>
• Listen sockets must use socket::ListenSocket instead of socket::Socket
• If you were subclassing socket::Socket to create a custom socket implementation, that pattern is no longer supported

See the blog post for detailed migration examples.

References

• ESPHome PR: [socket] Devirtualize socket abstraction layer esphome/esphome#14398
• Developer blog post: Add blog post: socket abstraction layer devirtualization esphome/developers.esphome.io#110