[TriEmbed] wireless device

Craig Cook cncook001 at yahoo.com
Wed Dec 30 09:26:52 CST 2015


I appreciate everyone's feedback.
My project is a proof-of-concept thing.  For now I think I'll start with the esp8266 but may quickly look at other options if/when I have problems with it.

Longer term (if I get it working) I'll need to evaluate other wifi options.
I'll design my code to "easily" swap out wireless options.

Thanks
Craig



      From: Robert Gasiorowski <rgresume at gmail.com>
 To: Jon Wolfe <jonjwolfe at anibit.com> 
Cc: "pete at soper.us" <pete at soper.us>; Craig Cook <cncook001 at yahoo.com>; "triembed at triembed.org" <triembed at triembed.org>
 Sent: Wednesday, December 30, 2015 7:58 AM
 Subject: Re: [TriEmbed] wireless device
   
ESP8266 is good if you're on a very strict budget and designing a custom, quick & dirty, non-mission-critical or proof-of-concept solution, and on a private network (it supports WPA.) I would never use it in an actual product. It will be, however, soon made obsolete by the new dual-core BLE / WiFI part that Espressif has recently announced, the ESP32, towards which the community will certainly shift its focus and development efforts. I suspect this new device will be quite a game-changer in the maker / hobbyist space and might become the new connected "Arduino".
I also forgot to mention CC2650, not a WiFi device, but worth looking at. There's new, cool CC2650 BoosterPack coming soon.

ESP8266 PROS
- Price (amazing, considering that ready-to-go modules are available for about 3 USD)
- Size of modules and reference design BOMs (i.e. most components are integrated in the chip and the reference design only adds some flash memory and little else for the RF side)
- Ease of use of the AT+ command set
- Nice interactive mode with local echo (good for network troubleshooting)
- Simple firmware update (through UART interface: no special hardware required)
- Vibrant community (but mostly experimental)
- Arduino IDE support (advantage from a communication point of view, as you don't have to explain it can use a Wiring derivative blah blah)

ESP8266  CONS

- Power hungry (because of radio interface/protocol and power management implementation)
- No proper debugging in the toolchain for now (and probably never at this pace, as apparently only some experimental and limited success has been achieved. I think I have read somewhere that apparently Espressif may have not licensed for redistribution the entire IP package from their core vendor Tensilica. Very major absolute show-stopper for me so I haven't even looked at their tools)
- Documentation (lack of and absurd versioning and paternity, with absolutely no criteria and multiple anonymous and undocumented releases floating around, at least for the AT+ firmware)
- Firmware quality (unstable, sometimes self-resets, multiple connections required to run as an HTTP server)
- Most open software development appears to be community-driven (with all the problems that this generates because it mixes up with the limited - closed - activity from the vendor)
- Lack of secure connections due to RAM size and buggy / unfinished APIs


On Wed, Dec 30, 2015 at 12:17 AM, Jon Wolfe <jonjwolfe at anibit.com> wrote:

I can personally testify that you can get the emw3165 working with broadcoms sdk, gcc/gdb and eclipse, no IAR needed. Seeed sells a dev tool for it for around $20 that has an embedded jtag.


-------- Original message --------
From: pete at soper.us 
Date: 12/29/2015 11:11 PM (GMT-05:00) 
To: Robert Gasiorowski <rgresume at gmail.com>, Jon Wolfe <jonjwolfe at anibit.com> 
Cc: Craig Cook <cncook001 at yahoo.com>, triembed at triembed.org 
Subject: Re: [TriEmbed] wireless device 

Yes, the more I read about the 8266 the more it seems like the ultimate "get what you pay for" demo. I could well imagine a lot of snickering going on at TI.
Here's a blog post exploring reliability issues:
http://flashgamer.com/hardware/comments/esp8266-and-stability
The situation w the EMW3165 is more fuzzy, and it appears that module's developers think everybody has the IAR Embedded Workbench on their (Windows, natch) PC. (the IAR software costs thousands of dollars!) Pete


----- Reply message -----
From: "Robert Gasiorowski via TriEmbed" <triembed at triembed.org>
To: "Jon Wolfe" <jonjwolfe at anibit.com>
Cc: "Craig Cook" <cncook001 at yahoo.com>, "triembed at triembed.org" <triembed at triembed.org>
Subject: [TriEmbed] wireless device
Date: Tue, Dec 29, 2015 9:45 PM
Anything is better than ESP8266 :) (I can elaborate if you want)
If you are looking for something reliable and easy to work with, I would suggest CC3100 (NWP) or CC3200 (NWP+ARM).They are not cheap, but they are worth every penny.
Rob.



On Tue, Dec 29, 2015 at 7:41 PM, Jon Wolfe via TriEmbed <triembed at triembed.org> wrote:

EMW3165, it's actually been around for a while. ARM  Cortex m4, 2+0.5 Mb flash, 128 k ram. There are a few more capable variations too, but you start to run into the price range where you should just get a pi. (Of course the pi zero makes that price point even lower)



-------- Original message --------
From: Craig Cook via TriEmbed <triembed at triembed.org> 
Date: 12/29/2015 6:51 PM (GMT-05:00) 
To: triembed at triembed.org 
Subject: [TriEmbed] wireless device 

At our last Triembed meeting someone mentioned there was a new wireless device coming our soon that was better than the esp8266.  What was it?
Thanks
Craig

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