esp8266 News - Page 15 of 21 - CNX Software

October 10, 2016October 21, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 24 Comments

Sonoff Pow is a $10.50 ESP8266 WiFi Relay Box that also Measures Power Consumption

In a recent article about Sonoff TH10/TH16 WiFi relays with sensor probes support, we also saw that ITEAD Studio started to have a nice family of home automation products. The company has now added one more item to the Sonoff family with Sonoff Pow support up to 16A/3500W input, and the first to also include power consumption measurements. Sonoff Pow specifications: SoC – Espressif ESP8266 Tensila L106 32-bit MCU up to 80/160 MHz with WiFi Connectivity – 802.11 b/g/n WiFi with WPA/WPA2 support Relay – HF152F-T relay with 90 to 250 VAC input, up to 16A (3500 Watts) Terminals – 6 terminal for mains and load’s ground, live and neutral signals. Programming – Unpopulated 4-pin header for flashing external firmware Misc – LEDs for power and WiFi status, power consumption circuitry with 1% accuracy. Dimensions – 114 x 52 x 32mm Temperature range – -40 ℃ to 125 ℃ The […]

October 7, 2016October 7, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

How to Write ESP8266 Firmware from Scratch (using ESP Bare Metal SDK and C Language)

CNXSoft: This is a guest post by Alexander Alashkin, software engineer in Cesanta, working on Mongoose Embedded Web Server. Espressif’s ESP8266 had quite an evolution. Some may even call it controversial. It all started with ESP8266 being a WiFi module with a basic UART interface. But later it became clear that it’s powerful enough for embedded system. It’s essentially a module that can be used for running full-fledged applications. Espressif realized this as well and released an SDK. As first versions go, it was full of bugs but since has become significantly better. Another SDK was released which offered FreeRTOS ported to ESP. Here, I want to talk about the non-OS version. Of course, there are third-party firmwares which offer support for script language to simplify development (just Google for these), but ESP8266 is still a microchip (emphasis on MICRO) and using script language might be overkill. So what we […]

September 19, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Sonoff TH10/16 WiFi Relays Support Temperature and Humidity Probes

Sonoff are dirt cheap WiFi AC/DC relay systems based on ESP8266 selling for about $5 with board and case. They are made by ITEAD Studio, and the company has now new versions supporting up to 16A @ 250V, and with a 2.5mm connector to connect external temperature and humidity probes. Two models are available Sonoff-TH10 (10A max) and Sonoff-TH16 (16A max) with the following specifications: SoC – Espressif ESP8266 Tensila L106 32-bit MCU up to 80/160 MHz with WiFi Connectivity – 802.11 b/g/n WiFi with WPA/WPA2 support Relay Sonoff-TH10 – HK3FF-DC5V-SHG supporting 90 to 250 VAC input, up to 10A (2200 Watts) Sonoff-TH16 – Hongfa HF152F-T supporting 90 to 250 VAC input, up to 16A (3500 Watts) Terminals – 6 terminal for mains and load’s ground, live and neutral signals. Misc – 4-pin 2.5mm jack for external probes, LEDs for power and WiFi status Dimensions – PCB: 89.1 x 45.0 […]

September 15, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 20 Comments

A.I. Thinker A20 Plus ESP8266 WiFi Board Includes GPRS Support and a VGA Camera

A.I. Thinker, a company known for its ESP8266 module, has designed a new intriguing product with A20Plus board powered by Espressif ESP8266 (or ESP8285) WiFi SoC, that also features GPRS connectivity, and a 0.3MP camera. There’s basically no info on the “English Internet”, but Raymond Tunning found lots of info in Chinese, and posted information and links on his blog. A20 Plus board specifications: Wireless Module – A.I. Thinker A20 module with GPRS and WiFi (ESP8266 or ESP8285), two antennas connector Camera – VGA camera interface (up to 640×480 resolution) compatible with OV7670, GC0308, GC0328, & GC0309 sensors. Expansion – 2x headers with GPIO, ADC, power signals… USB – 1x micro USB port for power and programming Misc – Reset and user button, two LEDs (for flash?) Dimensions – TBC An Android app (binary + source code) is provide to retrieve pictures (apparently no video for now) over WiFi or […]

September 5, 2016September 5, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 15 Comments

$5 Wemos D1 mini Pro ESP8266 Board includes 16MB Flash

Wemos D1 mini is one of my favorite ESP8266 development boards thanks to its small size, shield support, and low $4 price tag. There’s now a new version of the board – dubbed Wemos D1 mini Pro – with 16MB flash instead of 4MB for the original version, and a few other modifications. Wemos D1 mini Pro specifications: WiFi 802.11 b/g/n module based on ESP8266EX with 16 MB flash, chip antenna and external antenna connector Expansion – Through holes with 11x digital input/output pins (3.3V) supporting interrupt/PWM/I2C/one-wire (except D0 pin) 1x analog input (3.3V max input) Reset and power signals (5V, 3.3V, GND) USB – micro USB port Misc – Reset button Power – 5V via micro USB or 5V pin Dimensions – 34.2 x 25.6 mm Weight – 2.5 grams Beside the larger flash, the main differences are listed in a Wemos forum post: External antenna connector – switch […]

August 18, 2016November 26, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 18 Comments

Getting Started with B&T RTL-00 RTL8710 Module – Serial Console, AT Commands, and ESP8266 Pin-to-Pin Compatibility

The announcement of the ultra-low cost ARM based Realtek RTL8710 WiFi modules for IoT applications generated quite a lot of buzz since they can potentially compete with the popular ESP8266 modules. The main problem at the time was documentation and software support, but after some searches we could find that RTL8710 was part of Realtek Ameba family, and found some documents and an SDK for RTL8710/RTL8711/RTL8195. ICStation also kindly provided one B&T RTL-00 module for review, which costs $3.55 shipped per unit, and as low as $2.85 if you purchase 10 or more. The question here is how to get started? The answer can be found in page 8 of the Chinese datasheet for the module with GB0 and GB1 pins used for Tx and Rx to access the serial console. Time for some soldering… For the first test, we’ll just need Tx (GB1), Rx (GB0), GND and 3.3V, and […]

August 12, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Evive is an Arduino Compatible Platform with Enclosure, Lots of I/Os, Buttons, and an 1.8″ Display (Crowdfunding)

Engineers at Agilo Technologies, an Indian startup based in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, felt that the wire mess often produced while learning or prototyping with Arduino boards could be an issue, and it was easy to mis-wire your setup, so they’ve decided to create a user and student friendly Arduino compatible system with many of the items you’d normally use with Arduino board such as buttons, probes inputs, an 1.8″ color display, headers for ESP8266, Bluetooth, and XBEE moduels, etc.. and all of that enclosed in a neat case. Evive was born. Evive specifications: MCU – Atmel ATmega2560 8-bit AVR MCU @ 16 MHz with 256KB flash, 4KB EEPROM, 8KB SRAM Storage – micro SD slot up to 32GB Display – 1.8″ TFT display; 160×128 resolution; 18-bit color User inputs – Tactile and slide switches, joysticks, and potentiometers Probes inputs – Voltage / Intensity sensing inputs USB – USB device port Expansion Headers […]

August 10, 2016August 10, 2016 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

4Duino-24 is an Arduino compatible 2.4″ Color IoT Display Module with Atmel MCU and ESP8266 Module

I played with ITEAD Studio NEXTION serial color displays for Arduino boards and the likes a few months ago, and while the hardware seems good and the company offer a large choice of 2.4″ to 7″ models at a very affordable price, I didn’t find the Windows software to create the user interface to be very user-friendly. 4D Systems, an Australian company specializing in “graphics solutions”, will soon launch a similar 2.4″ display, but integrated into an Arduino compatible board also featuring an ESP8266 module for WiFi connectivity. 4Duino-24 “LCD IoT Display Module” specifications: MCU – Atmel ATmega32U4 micro-controller with 32KB flash, 2.5KB SRAM, 1KB EEPROM Storage – micro SD card slot (FAT16 support) for data and logging WiFi Module – ESP8266 based with 802.11 b/g/n connectivity, 1MB flash, support for Wi-Fi Direct (P2P), soft-AP Display – 2.4” LCD-TFT resistive touch display module with 240×320 resolution, 65K colors, and powered […]