user86359: I’ve worked with esp8266/esp32 boards in the past and they were great. But now I have a very simple project where both of these are way too powerful.
I want to read one analog input over USB per COM. That’s it. No wifi, no Bluetooth, no 32 bit or any of these fancy things.
It should be programmable without any hardware other than a computer though. It doesn’t need to be Arduino. All it has to do is to read the input and respond to serial communication.
But I’m absolutely overwhelmed by all these microcontrollers. Most of them are feature packed.
So I’m asking for a way to find a proper controller/board on my own. Feel free to recommend one though.

user61851: Since you require USB, nano/micro are your way forward.
being mass produced anything smaller would actually turnout to be more expensive.
If you for those reading this message latter: If you do not need USB then you have a pro-miny (needs USB->ttl for programing)
If you are going really minimalist you can go with MSP430 chips (arduino programming available via PlatformIO).
Atmega32u4 can although run on its own without crystal, but I find Crystal free (using builtin crystal) run of MSP430 much better with timing.
Problem with MSP430 is that TI software development dedepartment is stuck in middle ages. (I am not sure if they even employ a full-time programmer) and if you are programming on arm, you might Have a problem compiling it from arm platform.

86359: <p>I’ve worked with esp8266/esp32 boards in the past and they were great. But now I have a very simple project where both of these are way too powerful.</p>
<p>I want to read one analog input over USB per COM. That’s it. No wifi, no Bluetooth, no 32 bit or any of these <em>fancy things</em>.
It should be programmable without any hardware other than a computer though. It doesn’t need to be Arduino. All it has to do is to read the input and respond to serial communication.</p>
<p>But I’m absolutely overwhelmed by all these microcontrollers. Most of them are feature packed.</p>
<p>So I’m asking for a way to find a proper controller/board on my own. Feel free to recommend one though.</p>
 61851: <p>Since you require USB, nano/micro are your way forward.
being mass produced anything smaller would actually turnout to be more expensive.</p>
<p>If you for those reading this message latter: If you do not need USB then you have a pro-miny (needs USB-&gt;ttl for programing)</p>
<p>If you are going really minimalist you can go with MSP430 chips (arduino programming available via PlatformIO).
Atmega32u4 can although run on its own without crystal, but I find Crystal free (using builtin crystal) run of MSP430 much better with timing.
Problem with MSP430 is that TI software development dedepartment is stuck in middle ages. (I am not sure if they even employ a full-time programmer) and if you are programming on arm, you might Have a problem compiling it from arm platform.</p>
