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ESP8266: A $5 microcontroller with wi-fi that runs Python

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Re: ESP8266: A $5 microcontroller with wi-fi that runs Python

#11

Post by robert_foss »

I've personally built hardware[1] and software[2] around the ESP8266 and it is a wonderful little chip. The low price point ($2 including shipping from China) and the very active community around it really makes it stand out.

[1] http://memcpy.io/esp8266-apa102-bulb.html

[2] http://memcpy.io/user-friendly-setup-of-esp8266-gadgets.html

Re: ESP8266: A $5 microcontroller with wi-fi that runs Python

#12

Post by robert_foss »

thechut wrote: post #6

While this is a very cool chip for hobbyists, it is quite hard to do real TLS with this chip making it basically useless for commercial applications. It CAN do TLS but it leaves very little left over if you have any kind of real business logic.

If you're looking for improved TLS support, have a peek at esp-open-rtos[1], which is a re-implementation of the Espressif provided rtos sdk and is aiming to be fully open source. It ships with the mbed TLS implementation, which supports TLS 1.2.

[1] https://github.com/SuperHouse/esp-open-rtos

Re: ESP8266: A $5 microcontroller with wi-fi that runs Python

#14

Post by zw123456 »

I have actually done a fair bit of dev work on this chip (a custom C++ IDE), it is a neat little device, with the emphasis on little. That is both a plus and a minus. Plus, it is cheap, minus, it is little, not a lot of processing power there. (forget Python if you are doing anything serious).

The way I worked around it is put all the processing in the cloud and basically the vpn passes straight through it. Interestingly, it actually is being used in a number of consumer products, but for very basic iot apps (I believe there is a wifi enable light socket and an automobile ODB link device things like that).

Fun device to mess with :)

Re: ESP8266: A $5 microcontroller with wi-fi that runs Python

#17

Post by dbcurtis »

ptspts wrote: post #13

FYI ESP8266 doesn't run Python, but it runs MicroPython: https://github.com/micropython/micropython

I have some experience using MicroPython on the PyBoard (not the ESP8266). MicroPython is a very nice implementation of Python 3.X. A few differences because of the need to be extremely parsimonious with RAM usage -- mostly only noticed if trying to inherit from built-in types. Nothing that is onerous to avoid. MicroPython is an outstandingly good project IMHO, with a great community.

Re: ESP8266: A $5 microcontroller with wi-fi that runs Python

#18

Post by windexh8er »

simcop2387 wrote: post #7
windexh8er wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

64 KiB of instruction RAM, 96 KiB of data RAM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESP8266 For whatever reason the Make dead-tree-edition of the original article posted has a "Table of Boards" in it and they list the ESP8266 as having 1MB of "Memory". It's also a new article. It's recently run in the February/March 2016 edition of Make: Super (Cheap) Computers. Edit: While the OPs link is not the new article, it is in the c…

The 1MB is likely referring to the SPI flash device that the ESP-01 modules use. Many of the other boards feature larger SPI flash chips up to 4MB, and I believe it's possible in theory to boot of an SD card with them too if you remove the flash chip.

Thanks for the clarification!

Re: ESP8266: A $5 microcontroller with wi-fi that runs Python

#19

Post by dbcurtis »

zw123456 wrote: post #14

I have actually done a fair bit of dev work on this chip (a custom C++ IDE), it is a neat little device, with the emphasis on little. That is both a plus and a minus. Plus, it is cheap, minus, it is little, not a lot of processing power there. (forget Python if you are doing anything serious). The way I worked around it is put all the processing in the cloud and basically the vpn passes straight through it. Interesti…

Have you even tried MicroPython on it? Granted, you need to consider performance -- where you need it, and where you don't. But is is quite easy in MicroPython to create a C-extension module for performance critical components, and have the luxury of a Python REPL loop for debugging high-level logic.

Re: ESP8266: A $5 microcontroller with wi-fi that runs Python

#20

Post by ParanoidShroom »

kickscondor wrote: post #9

The ESP also runs Lua (by way of NodeMCU), JavaScript (Smart.js, Espruino and JerryScript), Lisp ( https://github.com/yesco/esp-lisp ) and even a form of BASIC ( http://www.esp8266basic.com/language-reference.html ). I'm sure more are out there - seems like something new pops up every few days.

Yup, NodeMCU is really easy. I used it to make a Philipps Hue clone. https://github.com/christophesmet/ledsgetIton

It's surprisingly easy connect to a WiFi and get a TCP server running

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