The Amazing $1 Microcontroller (2017) • Hacker News Board

Re: The Amazing $1 Microcontroller (2017)

#21

Post by penagwin » Tue, May 07, 2019, 6:27 PM UTC

so_tired wrote: post #19

neya wrote: post #8

My favorite is the ATTINY 85. It's so cheap and yet, it can do almost most of the things you can do an Arduino. And yes, you can program it using the Arduino IDE as well. Last year, I started out to digitalize my entire house with these tiny ATTINY 85 chips and with some nrF wireless chips. It has worked really well for me and I'm able to control and monitor any power port in my house as well as my mains. The overall…

This is such a great setup. Maybe if we just put 10 of these mini-controllers in each home, we can cover the majority of electricity consumption, and get demand flexibility the cheap way (instead of fitting each home with an expensive smart meter). (Obviously the cloud/app parts will have to be centralized with consumer opt-in and preferences etc..) Have u thought about this ? Has this approach been explored ? great…

I'm curious, is this a common problem? At least here in Michigan, our electric company essentially replaced all meters with smart meters for free, unless you choose to opt-out.

Power-measuring outlets do exist, Belkin has one under the WEMO brand for example. It's just that it generally makes far more sense (for the electric company) to put the meter in one spot, instead of every outlet.

You still have to have the mini-controllers communicate with the power company though, so I'm not sure what problem you'd be solving?

Re: The Amazing $1 Microcontroller (2017)

#22

Post by coupdejarnac » Tue, May 07, 2019, 6:30 PM UTC

sgt wrote: post #9

jhallenworld wrote: post #6

It's missing the below 5 cents microcontrollers: https://lcsc.com/product-detail/PADAUK_PADAUK-Tech-PMS150C_C...

How is the documentation on those?

Fine if you can read Chinese.

There are several discussions about them at eevblog, with many people having success. It's probably the best place to get information in English.

Re: The Amazing $1 Microcontroller (2017)

#23

Post by 83 » Tue, May 07, 2019, 6:33 PM UTC

neya wrote: post #8

My favorite is the ATTINY 85. It's so cheap and yet, it can do almost most of the things you can do an Arduino. And yes, you can program it using the Arduino IDE as well. Last year, I started out to digitalize my entire house with these tiny ATTINY 85 chips and with some nrF wireless chips. It has worked really well for me and I'm able to control and monitor any power port in my house as well as my mains. The overall…

As someone building up some home automation I'd love to know how you are monitoring and controlling power. Remote power strips? Replacement outlets? Something diy?

Re: The Amazing $1 Microcontroller (2017)

#24

Post by jdietrich » Tue, May 07, 2019, 6:37 PM UTC

sgt wrote: post #9

jhallenworld wrote: post #6

It's missing the below 5 cents microcontrollers: https://lcsc.com/product-detail/PADAUK_PADAUK-Tech-PMS150C_C...

How is the documentation on those?

Surprisingly acceptable. The datasheets are reasonably legible and there's a weird but perfectly usable SDK. Padauk clearly don't care about the hobbyist market or more specialised applications that require certification or long-term availability, but their offering seems like an entirely reasonable choice for low-cost, mass-market products.

Re: The Amazing $1 Microcontroller (2017)

#25

Post by microtonal » Tue, May 07, 2019, 6:38 PM UTC

neya wrote: post #8

My favorite is the ATTINY 85. It's so cheap and yet, it can do almost most of the things you can do an Arduino. And yes, you can program it using the Arduino IDE as well. Last year, I started out to digitalize my entire house with these tiny ATTINY 85 chips and with some nrF wireless chips. It has worked really well for me and I'm able to control and monitor any power port in my house as well as my mains. The overall…

My favorite is the ATTINY 85. It's so cheap and yet, it can do almost most of the things you can do an Arduino. And yes, you can program it using the Arduino IDE as well.

How do you deal with the small number of pins? The NRF24L01+ uses SPI, which requires 4 pins. There are some guides on how to hook up an NRF with 3 pins. I think that only leaves 3 pins (besides VCC and GND)?

The ATtiny seems to be very attractive otherwise, because it works across a relatively large voltage range and does not use a lot of power.

Did you consider the ATtiny84, which has double the GPIO pins?

Re: The Amazing $1 Microcontroller (2017)

#26

Post by SlowRobotAhead » Tue, May 07, 2019, 6:39 PM UTC

The writer was on an episode of Embedded.fm podcast awhile back, one of the rare ones where they really get into embedded in detail. Good episode, I recommend it.

Two take-aways were that he just loved the Silicon Labs EFM series, which is a modern set of peripherals wrapped around an absolutely outdated 8051. For the most part micros are just moving things from one peripheral to another and that can work out just fine. It's nice SI used SWD/JTAG as the debug peripheral so you can program it along side all the ARM parts you're actually going to use.

And two... Having used almost everything on this list. I'm going to chose the ARM M0/M0+ 10 times out of 10 anymore. Maybe I prefer STM's peripherals to Atmel's event-eccentric, or whatever. I just can't honestly see starting a new project today on 8051, PIC16/24, AVR etc. Maybe it's what you're used to. Or maybe for someone making landfill-ready toys with razor thin margins, but I'm glad that's not me.

Re: The Amazing $1 Microcontroller (2017)

#27

Post by childintime » Tue, May 07, 2019, 6:39 PM UTC

The Renesas RX200 family would be a nice addition to the list. I'm curious how it fares against the ARM competition.

The most amazing ESP8266 also reached $1 in volume, but isn't really comparable to other MCU's, with very few pins and a crippled ADC.

Re: The Amazing $1 Microcontroller (2017)

#28

Post by tombert » Tue, May 07, 2019, 6:42 PM UTC

I very recently started getting into microcontroller programming, and have subsequently purchased a plethora of different ESP chips on Banggood for roughly $3-8 a pop (though all of them have WiFi built in, and a few even came with cameras).

I would actually be curious how these controllers compare to a $1 chip.

Re: The Amazing $1 Microcontroller (2017)

#29

Post by krm01 » Tue, May 07, 2019, 6:43 PM UTC

What I really would like to see is some more competition and price drops in displays. These microcontrollers are awesome and I love building small hardware projects. But the output systems are usually pricey. If color (ideally touch) displays can be made available for $5-$7. That would open up a flood gate of opportunities.

Re: The Amazing $1 Microcontroller (2017)

#30

Post by yeahitslikethat » Tue, May 07, 2019, 6:46 PM UTC

neya wrote: post #8

My favorite is the ATTINY 85. It's so cheap and yet, it can do almost most of the things you can do an Arduino. And yes, you can program it using the Arduino IDE as well. Last year, I started out to digitalize my entire house with these tiny ATTINY 85 chips and with some nrF wireless chips. It has worked really well for me and I'm able to control and monitor any power port in my house as well as my mains. The overall…

I'm doing the same thing now. I bet your people think you're as crazy as my people think of me.

My other friends are spending thousands of dollars retrofitting lighting and everything when they could spend a fraction and write some code.

And learn a skill. And not have their privacy invaded. And have more money they always complain about not having enough of.