ESP8266 - Another option for adding wifi?

Most of the things I do with my arduinos revolve around some sort of sensor/data collection then uploading that data where I can later process so i’m always looking for cheap wireless solutions.

WiFi options are pretty expensive, costing more then a wireless router/RPi itself but then I saw this guy show up: http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/WiFi-Serial-Transceiver-Module-w-ESP8266-p-1994.html

They have a couple of GPIO pins and just recently an SDK came out so I might not even need the arduino for some of my simple sensors. Anyone tried these out or had any experience with them? They seem perfect for posting data via wifi.

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I have an assortment of these on their way from AliExpress. :smile: They should be arriving in the next week or so - I’ll let you know when I get them!

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I have received mine but it went straight into the todo box :frowning:

I suspect these are nasty on the RF side, lots of adjacent channel interference perhaps? Might be smart to run a separate wifi network for them at the other end of the channel range from your usual one.

I started playing around with the SDK a little more and aside from the lack of documentation the example code was easy enough so I put in my order for a few of the ESP-03 and ESP-01 form factors.

I got my basic programs compiling so now, looking forward to actually trying it out. These should be perfect for my remote sensor gathering needs.

Here are some useful links I’ve found so far:

Good overview plus translated datasheet: ESP8266 - NURDspace
ESP8266 Community: http://www.esp8266.com/
Sample projects: GitHub - esp8266/source-code-examples: Examples of code for the ESP8266

My worry with them is they are not FCC/IC/CE cert - so its its illegal to use them, illegal to import, and most importantly it’s illegal to sell them if you make something using them.

That being said, if they deliver - they are a pretty nice price for little sensor projects! Anyone have a DSA or VNA to run them on?

I think that is a matter of time, found these with shields but I don’t know if they are actually certified.

There is also a draft report from the FCC.

The (original) manufacturer of them does claim that they are “with a shielding shell FCC CE certification, export guarantee” (Chrome auto-translation)… doesn’t necessarily mean anything of course.

But they dont have an FCC/IC number, which means they are illegal to import. Testing is $3-10k depending on how much you stuff up and the lab you use. This is out of the budget of most hobbyists :wink: Hence the need for a pre-certified module.

Board version 3 seems to be more popular since it has more gpios.

Can this be used for home automation? I’m imagining just the ESP + a SSrelay and some bits and bobs for powering the chip to get a very small package that can control household appliances (lights etc.)

It took me about a day to blow mine!

I still don’t know exactly what happened, and that’s the frustrating part.

First I tried to power it off my BusPirate. These things take 2-300mA of current, though, which is pushing it by about double what the BP has available.

Then I hooked it up to my lab power supply. There was a popping sound, the LEDs lit up really brightly, and all of the blue smoke came out.

I triple checked the power/ground pins, and that’s definitely not it. It’s possible there is something wrong with this board, or my power supply isn’t doing a good job. It is homemade, and has been improperly packed and stored with me over three moves in the past five years.

Now if only I had access to some sort of workshop with decent supplies and multimeters…