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A Look at Embedded WiFi Development Boards

blog.fusiondigital.io

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Re: A Look at Embedded WiFi Development Boards

#31

Post by bjpirt »

technomancy wrote: post #28
lmf4o wrote: post #27

i totally love the esp201. its very convenient to work with in eclipse/code blocks and can run C and C++. the documentation is a bit sparse though but thats mostly no problem as theres a great community behind it. But the biggest point for me is the size + the price. Why would one use a Raspi or Arduino to read out some moisture-meter if it can be done with a 3 dollar hardware piece the size of a fingernail?

> Why would one use a Raspi or Arduino to read out some moisture-meter if it can be done with a 3 dollar hardware piece the size of a fingernail? The article states that it lacks analog input, so that might be a good reason.

The article is wrong (at least partially!) - the module they used (the ESP-01) only has a limited number of pins brought out, but the chip itself has a 10 bit ADC on board and there are plenty of modules that bring out the pins. I've been using lots of ESP-12 modules and they're great

Re: A Look at Embedded WiFi Development Boards

#32

Post by epalmer »

No1 wrote: post #10
gh02t wrote: post #2

One thing that this article kind of glosses over is that there are a ton of different form factors for the ESP8266 (ESP-01 is the original, also the ESP-03, -07 and -12 are common). Most of them are rather inconvenient to work with directly though, not least because they aren't breadboard friendly. There are a bunch of breakouts made though that help this and integrate a voltage regulator, power jack, pin breakouts e…

> Most of them are rather inconvenient to work with directly though, not least because they aren't breadboard friendly. You're looking for the ESP-201: http://smarpl.com/sites/default/files/images/ESP8266-ESP-201... Enjoy!

Available on banggood http://www.banggood.com/ESP8266-ESP-201-Remote-Serial-Port-W...

Disclaimer: I have not used this board nor ordered from Banggood.

Re: A Look at Embedded WiFi Development Boards

#33

Post by nemik »

unclesaamm wrote: post #24

What's the situation like for HTTPS in the embedded world?

No big deal, you can make it work. axTLS is a pretty lightweight TLS implementation that you could strap to your TCP framework and make it work fine. It's also BSD-licensed so you can put it in proprietary stuff.

Re: A Look at Embedded WiFi Development Boards

#34

Post by vectorjohn »

nfriedly wrote: post #21
vectorjohn wrote: post #12

Look at Digistump Oak[0]. It's still in pre-order but the company has delivered many products at this point, and it's expected soon this year. [0] http://digistump.com/products/145

Yea, the Oak is probably the one that I'm the most excited about. I also backed one of Digistump's earlier kickstarters and was very pleased with both the hardware and the support.

Yeah, I've bought a few of their digispark chips. They're $8 and work great. This one's faster, has more storage, a few more bells and whistles, plus WiFi for $2 more. I can't not buy some.

Re: A Look at Embedded WiFi Development Boards

#35

Post by nfriedly »

alkonaut wrote: post #30

What are the power requirements of WiFi gadgets compared to other wireless tech? I was under the impression that WiFi wasn't a good choice for embedded because it's so power hungry that it can't be powered for extended time on batteries? There aren't many places where I want tiny wireless things where I also have access to AC power. That's basically limited to sockets/switches.

I believe the peak consumption of the ESP8266 can hit 300-400mA when transmitting, so yea that will kill a small battery pretty quickly for a chatty app.

OTOH, if you can keep the device powered down most of the time and just wake up to fetch/report data occasionally, you should be able to get several months of life on battery.

[edit] Adafruit says theirs peaks at 250mA, but that's still in the same ballpark. http://www.adafruit.com/product/2471

Re: A Look at Embedded WiFi Development Boards

#36

Post by gh02t »

jwatte wrote: post #5
gh02t wrote: post #2

One thing that this article kind of glosses over is that there are a ton of different form factors for the ESP8266 (ESP-01 is the original, also the ESP-03, -07 and -12 are common). Most of them are rather inconvenient to work with directly though, not least because they aren't breadboard friendly. There are a bunch of breakouts made though that help this and integrate a voltage regulator, power jack, pin breakouts e…

Three pieces of wire makes a harness that removed the hassle and takes 2 minutes to crimp.

I'm curious, what exactly do you mean? Are you talking about wiring the pull-up's for an ESP-01? I was more thinking the SMD form factor packages like the ESP-07, which expose a bunch more pins but in a 2mm pitch.

Re: A Look at Embedded WiFi Development Boards

#37

Post by gh02t »

nfriedly wrote: post #19

If you're interested in a NodeMCU board, I'd recommend this one: http://www.electrodragon.com/product/nodemcu-lua-amica-r2-es...

The ones RaysHobby makes are pretty awesome too. They come with an RGB LED and LIPO power jack on board, plus they have the connector for an external antenna. Bit more expensive though ($16). He ships them with NodeMCU pre-flashed and the schematics are all open source.

http://rayshobby.net/cart/esp8266/esptoy

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