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ESP32-C6, a Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5 (LE) SoC

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Re: ESP32-C6, a Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5 (LE) SoC

#31

Post by yarcob »

eaurouge wrote: post #16
Tepix wrote: post #11

When i looked at previous Espressif chips, their mesh networking implementation for Bluetooth was proprietary. The Bluetooth standard contains a mesh networking standard. Is there any affordable SoC that lets me build a standard Bluetooth mesh application without having to start from scratch?

Mesh networks are relatively new to the Standard. True LE 5 SoCs should have what you need to get started.

When I played around with ESP32 when it just came out, the problem was that the toolchains and software just weren't done yet. There were a lot of features that existed on hardware, but without toolchain support, docs, or sample code it was close to impossible to use them.

I'm not sure how it works now, but especially for newer stuff I wouldn't rely on the fact that the hardware claims to support something -- if the software isn't there, it just doesn't really mean much.

Re: ESP32-C6, a Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5 (LE) SoC

#32

Post by londons_explore »

vk6flab wrote: post #12

For a new project we've been looking at the ESP32 range - great functionality - but we're more than a little concerned about being reliant on a single company (Expressif) and manufacturer (TSMC). Are there other SoC solutions with multiple companies and manufacturers with similar functionality?

Just write your code with a decent seperation between your logic and vendor specific things.

Then if expressif can't deliver, it won't be too much work to switch platforms, especially if you're switching to a more capable platform.

Sure, you'll probably have to respin the PCB and spend a week of late nights porting software, but that's probably still comes out cheaper considering the low probability of expressif chips being unavailable.

Re: ESP32-C6, a Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5 (LE) SoC

#33

Post by Kliment »

qalmakka wrote: post #26

Why didn't they pack more ram on this? 400K is a bit tight, we often hit the ceiling with the ESP32's 512K of internal RAM. Does anyone know if they support SPI-connected external RAM on this? It has been a lifesaver on the ESP32, especially since WROVER-E fixed most of the long standing bugs that were plaguing the earlier revisions. It is slow as hell, but having 4MB (+4MB high memory) of connected RAM on a microcon…

Have you seen the die images of the ESP32? Basically the entire die area is SRAM. SRAM eats a ton of space, and with a bigger die area you have a much higher likelihood per part that you will have a defect and have to scrap the entire chip.

Re: ESP32-C6, a Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5 (LE) SoC

#34

Post by chrisco255 »

chabes wrote: post #22
conradludgate wrote: post #7

I was recently looking into using some ESP32s to use on a BLE hardware project I am working on at the moment. Although I do wonder whether wifi would be a better technology to use sometimes. The only thing I remember seeing is that wifi technology uses much more power. From TFA it looks like WiFi 6 uses less power, is this true? Anyone experienced have any suggestions whether BLE or WiFi would be better for streaming…

ESP-NOW might be suitable, as it requires less power than regular wifi. From the docs: “ESP-NOW is a kind of connectionless Wi-Fi communication protocol that is defined by Espressif. In ESP-NOW, application data is encapsulated in a vendor-specific action frame and then transmitted from one Wi-Fi device to another without connection.” https://docs.espressif.com/projects/esp-idf/en/latest/esp32/... Edit: this video di…

Sounds like a security nightmare.

Re: ESP32-C6, a Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5 (LE) SoC

#35

Post by audunw »

ksec wrote: post #29
eaurouge wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cortex-M. Lots of Bluetooth LE solutions. WiFi getting there - Nordic is working on a solution here as well.

Are the tools and software from Nordic better?

Nordics tools and documentation are generally considered relatively high quality. Not perfect, but the competition is usually worse. That's one of the main reasons they are dominating the Bluetooth LE peripheral market.

Re: ESP32-C6, a Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5 (LE) SoC

#36

Post by pjmlp »

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #27
qalmakka wrote: post #26

Why didn't they pack more ram on this? 400K is a bit tight, we often hit the ceiling with the ESP32's 512K of internal RAM. Does anyone know if they support SPI-connected external RAM on this? It has been a lifesaver on the ESP32, especially since WROVER-E fixed most of the long standing bugs that were plaguing the earlier revisions. It is slow as hell, but having 4MB (+4MB high memory) of connected RAM on a microcon…

Especially since the multi-thread OS means wasting space for multiple stacks. 400k is a lot for an MCU, but for the ESP32 its really not that much. A 1MB Sram version would be great, with two cores.

Why use the OS then? Just do bare metal runtime like we used to do on MS-DOS days.

Re: ESP32-C6, a Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5 (LE) SoC

#37

Post by pjmlp »

qalmakka wrote: post #26

Why didn't they pack more ram on this? 400K is a bit tight, we often hit the ceiling with the ESP32's 512K of internal RAM. Does anyone know if they support SPI-connected external RAM on this? It has been a lifesaver on the ESP32, especially since WROVER-E fixed most of the long standing bugs that were plaguing the earlier revisions. It is slow as hell, but having 4MB (+4MB high memory) of connected RAM on a microcon…

From my MS-DOS/Speccy programming days 400KB is a lot, no need to make use of the OS, if one can avoid it.

Re: ESP32-C6, a Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5 (LE) SoC

#38

Post by audunw »

I really wish Thread mesh networking would become standard on new Wi-Fi routers. Google Nest has hardware support for it, but not sure if it's enabled yet.

I think Thread is a much better fit for IP connectivity for IoT devices. Nordic Semiconductor nRF SoCs can do Bluetooth LE and Thread on the same radio at the same time, so should be very cost effective.

I'd gladly replace all my Zigbee devices with Thread ones if they were available. It'd be really nice with something that's easier to troubleshoot with standard IP tools, and to not have to have a separate hub for that network.

Nordic Semiconductor recently bought Imagination Technologies WiFi assets, so there should be some nice SoCs from them in the near future too.

Re: ESP32-C6, a Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5 (LE) SoC

#39

Post by pfyra »

sam_bristow wrote: post #23
conradludgate wrote: post #7

I was recently looking into using some ESP32s to use on a BLE hardware project I am working on at the moment. Although I do wonder whether wifi would be a better technology to use sometimes. The only thing I remember seeing is that wifi technology uses much more power. From TFA it looks like WiFi 6 uses less power, is this true? Anyone experienced have any suggestions whether BLE or WiFi would be better for streaming…

One downside of using wifi if that devices like phones really don't like network connections that don't route to the internet. You sometimes have to fight them to stop the phone "helpfully" falling back to 4G or popping up all sorts of warnings about degraded networking to the user. [edit]: This is assuming you are connecting directly to the device of course. Connecting the ESP32 to your existing wifi is well support…

I have tried fighting this a couple of times but lost every time. Do you know a solution to make my Android phone keep the connection to a wifi without internet connection?

Re: ESP32-C6, a Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5 (LE) SoC

#40

Post by pta2002 »

neltnerb wrote: post #19
vk6flab wrote: post #12

For a new project we've been looking at the ESP32 range - great functionality - but we're more than a little concerned about being reliant on a single company (Expressif) and manufacturer (TSMC). Are there other SoC solutions with multiple companies and manufacturers with similar functionality?

From what I've seen the Qualcomm chips are really great but impossible to buy if you're a normal human, the ST chips are pretty solid and have a configuration tool that works well in Linux and their -WB versions support wireless and bluetooth but use more power than the Qualcomm chips. Then there's microchip (owner of atmel) which has a wifi integrated chip, but it was really hard to get to work. ESP32 was also super…

AFAIK the older ESP chips used Xtensa, not ARM.
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