Add Support for ESP-NOW Communication in ESPHome

[asucrews]

Describe the component you'd like

I'd like to see support for ESP-NOW communication — a low-latency, peer-to-peer protocol supported by ESP32 and ESP8266 chips. It allows devices to communicate without needing Wi-Fi infrastructure.

Need features, might missed some:

• A new esp_now: base component
• Ability to define trusted peers using MAC addresses
• Support for sending data using esp_now.send: action
• Support for receiving messages via esp_now.receive: trigger
• Optional encryption (peer-based key exchange)
• Support for both broadcast and direct (unicast) messaging

What are your use cases for this component?

• Enable direct communication between ESPHome nodes with no Wi-Fi or MQTT dependency
• Build ultra-low-latency automations (e.g. sensor → light switch in under 20ms)
• Support battery-powered, deep-sleep sensors that wake and send ESP-NOW packets to a gateway node
• Create resilient, offline-ready automation networks (ideal for agriculture, RVs, hiking tools, or disaster kits)

Is there a public datasheet, documentation and/or schematics?

Espressif official documentation:

• https://docs.espressif.com/projects/esp-idf/en/latest/esp32/api-reference/network/esp_now.html

Tutorials and reference implementations:

• https://randomnerdtutorials.com/esp-now-esp32-arduino-ide/
• https://github.com/espressif/esp-now/tree/master/examples
• https://github.com/aquaticus/ESPNowESPHOME

Anything else?

There is already an open pull request for this in ESPHome:

PR #35743 – espnow: Adding new base component for communicating between esp32 devices

[nielsnl68]

checkout my PR at esphome/esphome#9582 This is my second attempt

I have been working on this for some time now trying it to make it as simple as possible.

[asucrews]

@nielsnl68 Cool! This seem like great way to handle it! Can wait to see it ready and merged!

[nielsnl68]

You can test it now. At the moment it is future complete. We (Jesse and I) would love to see some implementations.

[leuchtum]

@nielsnl68 it's super cool to see that ESPNOW is now an official component. What I'm still missing, though, is ACK/NACK logic. That would make the whole setup much more resilient. Do you have any plans to add that? Thanks for your hard work!

[leuchtum]

Also, any plan to add Packet Transport Component on top of ESPNOW?