The big advantage of the ESP32 discovery is its availability, while this device is a unique configuration that isn't available in most places.
Sipeed teased a similar hack using some (undisclosed) USB-wifi chip, though I don't take them seriously as none can get their hands on the chips they tend to use.
Many cheap USB 3 Wifi 5/6 dongles out there, based on RTL8852BU and such. Just one QFN IC and XO. Their "firmware" seems to be a binary blob loaded over USB. I'm skeptical that these "testmodes" can be figured out with just bruteforcing, wonder if they load custom firmware for compliance testing or just leave those routines hanging around in release firmware too.
Sipeed teased a similar hack using some (undisclosed) USB-wifi chip, though I don't take them seriously as none can get their hands on the chips they tend to use.
Many cheap USB 3 Wifi 5/6 dongles out there, based on RTL8852BU and such. Just one QFN IC and XO. Their "firmware" seems to be a binary blob loaded over USB. I'm skeptical that these "testmodes" can be figured out with just bruteforcing, wonder if they load custom firmware for compliance testing or just leave those routines hanging around in release firmware too.