You don't really need an open source ESC, just an adapter to Graupner or TBS Telemetry for an existing telemetry-enabled ESC. Or external sensors like current/voltage, RPM and temperature sensors are readily available as separate units, although the ELRS-compatible options right now are somewhat limited because ELRS chose to use a less well supported telemetry protocol, namely Graupner's HoTT system. The RCLightSystems ESC Telemetry converter supports Castle Creations, HobbyWing and Spektrum ESC's with HoTT-compatible receivers.

But I'd expect that we will see BLHeli32 based ESC's commercially available at some point in the not too distant future. These are already supported via 3rd party firmware (AM32) for some surface applications and are the defacto standard for FPV racing today.

This is a very valid comment, and it's one reason why I keep saying that it will take time before EdgeTX/ELRS transmitters are truly disruptive in the surface market. The whole ecosystem needs to exist for the disruption to occur and that takes time to build, then time to build adoption (and the two go hand in hand, no adoption, nobody will build telemetry-integrated ESC's or anything else). Once critical mass is hit though, it will be quite disruptive in the market.

Clearly you've never tried to program a Sanwa. I actually sold an M17 for the MT12 for a few really big reasons. Low latency, a throttle timer that pauses at neutral and voltage telemetry. The fact that it took a drone company to bring those last 2 features to the surface world in 2023 is kinda crazy.

Former professional drone racer here that has been using OpenTX/EdgeTX since 2014. I got back into RC racing in 2020 and when I started shopping around for a competitive radio (with low latency) I was shocked at how much they cost and how limited they are. It's an actual joke that my $600 M17 didn't have the same basic functions of my $80 Frsky X9 lite.

So I have been waiting for years for what I knew was possible, a good EdgeTX surface radio that wasn't expensive just because.

Remember a $1400 Spektrum NX20 air radio doesn't have the features of your $80 X9 Lite either ;-)

I think the potential of telemetry plus the latency performance at this price point has got to get some club racers very interested. If it can interest some of the pros and influencers it will help a lot too. The pricing of high end tx/rx just seems insane to me. At the very least i hope this helps drive down sanwa and futaba prices.

Based on my experience in the Air market, the average price of the current competition is going to go up, not down.

The radio market is a bit weird and frankly most of the big radio makers do not have a great handle on their market because they are still far too dependent on big events and LHS feedback in a world where that's not the core retail path.

We're watching this now with Spektrum in the air market, where they've functionally priced themselves out of the entry level and haven't realized it yet, their beginner radio costs the same as a TX16SmII, guess what I see new pilots buying, the 7ch limited programming, no voice radio or the 16ch colour screen+voice radio. In the Surface market Spektrum's big issue is their choice to not make the upgrade path seamless, with a compatibility break between SLT and DSMR radios. If the MPM project can nail down SLT support, it will be a no-brainer to go MT12 when upgrading from an SLT2 or SLT3 in one of the many Horizon Hobby RTR's.

That's something Spektrum mostly avoided in the air world (although they do have a new low-end 6ch SLT radio which may complicate things in the future)

dang, i hope it doesn't raise prices. It's interesting to watch and see how this all develops. Will be interesting to see in 5-10 years if RM started a breakthrough trend or not. I'm hoping it is as i see a lot of potential but i haven't bought into it yet.

My expectations are we will see the same thing we did in the air market. Sanwa/Futaba/Spektrum will increasingly price themselves out of the market, and other players will enter at the low end and midrange. Radios won't get more expensive overall, just radios from traditional brands.

I expect the beginner market to be FlySky, RadioMaster and 1-2 other brands not currently in the surface market (at least one being another EdgeTX brand, probably BetaFPV or Jumper). That will trickle upwards over time and increasingly constrain the traditional brands at the high end, eventually the only folks running the traditional brands will be old hands continuing to use what works well for them with no reason to change, but newer drivers will be on the new brands by and large.

why would the timer need to stop? Sanwa offers low latency, timer, and voltage telemetry. I’m confused about the neutral bit tho

I have both an M17 and an MT12. Hands down the M17 is far simpler to use. And the latency on the MT12 is not lower than an M17.

Although I don’t have an MT12 (yet) I would tend to agree - the Sanwa is stupid simple. I’m familiar enough with OpenTX to know although it’s capable, it isn’t simple.
Anything you need to do with a Sanwa is fairly straight forward - especially changing the servo protocol is easy, starting a timer is easy, and looking at the voltage on the screen is easy. (Would be cool to HEAR the voltage which I don’t believe Sanwa can do, but MT12 could do with a lua script)

You don't need any extra lua scripts to play the voltage. Native functionality is capable of setting a logical switch if voltage is below a value and when True (switch On) speak the voltage value. This is done in 2 steps/menus but it's easy once you learn it.

If your timer runs continuously it can't be accurate. If you're getting marshalled as example and forget to pause the timer... The correct way is for the timer to pause itself when you go to neutral because you're not using any battery.

Mind you, I'm just talking about run time.

EDIT: Sanwa doesn't have native lipo voltage telemetry either.

I disagree, the clock doesn’t stop when you need marshal help during a race heat, why should you disregard consistency for practice?

I guess you don't understand. A different example is rock crawling... if I stop to watch my friend hit a nice line, is there any sense in my timer running? I'm not talking about lap times... I'm talking about battery runtime.