ESPHome reduces the time that web requests hold up the rest of a device’s work. On ESP32 devices using recent ESP-IDF builds, requests proceed in steps while other work runs; the actions after a request still wait for its response.
On a T-Display S3 Pro with ESP-IDF 5.5.6, an ordinary HTTPS request’s worst main-loop pause fell from roughly 2.4–2.5 seconds to 0.30–0.36 seconds across two runs. Total request time stayed about the same. Some connection and encryption work still pauses the device, and an unreachable host can block for the full timeout.
A script containing a request remains running until the response arrives. Scripts using the default single-run mode skip another trigger during that time; makers who need every trigger must choose queued or parallel mode. Arduino and host builds retain the previous blocking request behaviour.