According to this posted answer, Why do many electronics operate on 5 AND 3.3 Volts?, 5v provides better noise immunity than 3.3v so the Arduino Uno with 5v has less problems with a potentiometer in a 5v circuit than the ESP32 with a potentiometer in a 3.3v circuit.
This article from EE Times, Electrical noise and mitigation – Part 1: Noise definition, categories and measurement, has this to say:
The best illustration that can be given of this condition is to
consider where the signal voltage has been and what is happening to it
compared to the noise voltage (see Figure 8.5). In years gone by,
signal voltages may have been 30 V or more but since then have
steadily been decreasing. As long as the signal voltage was high and
the noise voltage was only 1 V, then we had what most instrument
engineers would call a very high signal to noise ratio, 30:1.
Most engineers would say you have no problem distinguishing the signal
as long as you have such a high signal to noise ratio. As the
electronic equipment industry advanced, the signal strength went down
further, below 10 and then below 5. Today we are fighting 1-, 2- and 3
V signals and still finding ourselves with 1, 2 and 3 V of electrical
noise. When this takes place for brief periods of time, the noise
signal may be larger than the actual signal. The sensors within the
sensitive equipment turn and try to run on the noise signal itself as
the predominant voltage.
See this answer Capacitor in circuit for potentiometer?.
From Instructables: Smooth Potentiometer Input
Sometimes, actually in most cases, potentiometers produce a jittery
signal. This can be due to low quality material used to make the
potentiometers. The jittery signal can be very irritating, especially
if you are using the pot to control a sensitive output. That is why
you need to look for a way to make the input smooth.
To smooth out the pot input, you should use a low-pass filter. It
removes all signals that have a frequency that is above the set
cut-off frequency. You determine the cut-off frequency by adjusting
the values of capacitance and resistance in the circuit.
See also Wikipedia topic Low-pass filter
One simple low-pass filter circuit consists of a resistor in series
with a load, and a capacitor in parallel with the load. The capacitor
exhibits reactance, and blocks low-frequency signals, forcing them
through the load instead. At higher frequencies the reactance drops,
and the capacitor effectively functions as a short circuit.
See also De-coupling which notes "Once you get more than a handful of active components together you need to de-couple the power supply. What this is, and why, is described here."
When an otherwise good design works, but is erratic, unreliable or
just goes crazy then nine time out of ten it is the power supply
de-coupling. And you will find that the tenth time, turns out to be
power supply de-coupling as well. So what is it, and why is it needed?
See as well The Ultimate Capacitors Guide: Learn How To Use Them
Best Answer
Virtually all of it; they are virtually identical except the WROVER dev board has a camera, a connector, and an extra processor for the camera.
Yes 100%. However, now that WROVERs are almost or even as cheap as WROOMs, and you can simply turn off the extra processor to save memory and power, and they both have virtually identical low power modes, there is no reason I can think of to ever buy a WROOM kit again. In April 2023 you can get 4x WROVER dev boards with cameras for $25 on Amazon with free next day shipping.
Yes, almost all espressif esp32 dev board pinouts are the same size (38 pins, like yours) but some people make shorter 30 pin versions, which seem rare, i.e. https://www.adafruit.com/product/5337. You will notice the WROVER dev boards almost all have a line next to every pin used for the camera (the camera will use them so don't use them for your own stuff if the camera is activated). Because anyone can make a esp32 dev board, you can't really be guaranteed the same pinouts, but 95% of board I have seen use the 38 pin package, with rare 30 pin versions. I've never personally seen anything else on a esp32 dev board.
Note, ESP32s come in a few varieties, including a RISC V varient that is very different under the hood compared to normal ESP32s (RISC V is a completely open source processor framework that is taking the world by storm, it uses totally different instructions).
RISC V variants have much less community support!
ESP32s also come with different memory amounts and different low power modes.
If you code for them directly or at a low level, these things become very important, but if you are just using arduino or micro python, and you are using it to interface with simple things like I2C devices and don't really care about putting the controller into low or ultra low power mode/etc, then instead just focus on getting the most features available while you learn, and that, as of this writing, is a VROVER dev board.
I learned esp32s on VROOMs, but now that WROVERs are out, thats what I'm using to teach my kids simply because of the added camera and instant visual feedback it provides, and all the micro python code I wrote for the VROOMs work without changing anything; temp sensors, games, control key code, you name it!
Because anyone can make a dev board, and they can put pins in different orders, you may have to change the pins you set or listen to in code, or change your hardware pin usage slightly, i.e. they may be using d2 where d1 was on the board you used with a different company. Other than that, things should work identically.