[TriEmbed] wireless device

[Martin Brooke]

Using the Arduino IDE and some minor unsoldering, undergraduate students in
my class got the ESP8266 Sparkfun Thing to use 20 uA @ 5V when in sleep mode

It wakes up and accesses a local Wifi router in a few seconds then goes
back to sleep for as long as we want.  I was surprised how well it is doing
this.

I plan to have students build WiFi wireless sensors that can be accessed by
bringing a known router nearby.  I think 20 uA is low enough for us to run
off 3 Ah of lead acid batteries for months if we only read the sensor every
10-20  minutes.  We have been using the sleeping micro to power up a
regular Arduino for the measurements.  The Arduino  uses tons of power for
a 5-10  seconds then gets turned off.  This model is easy for the students
to develop and works very well.

I spent a lot of time messing around with the Chipcon (now TI) parts over
the last few years and was pretty put off by the high price of hardware and
software.  Maybe if you are a big vendor you can beat them down to a
reasonable price.  They seem to have missed the point of the IoT.   Why
would I put $10 worth of internet
<http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/CC3200R1M2RGC/296-38012-ND/4959129?WT.z_cid=ref_octopart_dkc_buynow&site=us>
in my $9 toaster
<http://www.target.com/p/kitchen-smith-by-bella-2-slice-toaster/-/A-48635475?ci_src=17588969&ci_sku=48635475&ref=tgt_adv_XS000000&AFID=google_pla_df&CPNG=PLA_Appliances%2BShopping&adgroup=SC_Appliances&LID=700000001170770pgs&network=g&device=c&location=1021113&gclid=CjwKEAiA5Ji0BRC5huTCyOTR3wISJACH4Bx4pzdrBk3UkxDDG4y9a2u8kQvEO3_3ihR8_nM3oYeFnhoC4UPw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds>
?

Am I missing something?

Martin
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