Unified Debugger -- before I buy

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I am trying PlatformIO with VSCode. I like it so far. BUT, I want to try the Unified Debugger. Before I shell out the $100 for a year of the BASIC PLAN, I have a couple questions:

  1. What do people think about it? Does it work? Breakpoints, step over, step into, watch, etc. I use VS2017 so is it that straightforward?
  2. My target is a Adafruit Huzzah32 (ESP32). Does that really debug well?
  3. Just curious, how does it debug an arduino uno that does not have debugging support in the silicon?
  4. Is there a trial for the Unified Debugger?

thanks

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See Finally, PIO Unified Debugger comes to VSCode! - #3 by Brendan_Dower

Yes, we have 30days trial. If you trial is already expired, please ping us at contact@pioplus.com and we will reset it.

Currently, we don’t have official release of PIO Unified Debugger for ESP32, it is still in development. Nevertheless, you can try it.

What is your JTAG debugger?

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@ roujesky I am thinking of buying a few Adafruit Huzzah32 (ESP32).

How is it for debugging, in your experience?

Can I debug in PlatformIO without having to buy a JTAG probe? Thanks in advance for any help.

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As far as I can tell, you still need a JTAG probe / separate debugger. I don’t see anything special on the board compared to other ESP32 boards that would replace it.

See Debugging ESP32 · Pro/open62541-arduino Wiki · GitHub as an example for wiring it. The software side is much easier with PlatformIO however.

JTAG probes (if you want to call it that way) start at USD 8 (see Low-cost ESP32 In-circuit Debugging).

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