esp8266 News - Page 7 of 21 - CNX Software

October 4, 2019October 4, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Wio Lite RISC-V WiFi Board with ESP8266 Module Launches for $6.9

Released this summer, GigaDevice GD32V generated a lot of buzz, as a cheap general-purpose 32-bit RISC-V MCU, and soon after the $5 Longan Nano development board with LCD display and enclosure was launched to the market. However, many applications benefit or require some network connectivity with WiFi. Espressif Systems is a founding member of the RISC-V Foundation, so RISC-V WiSoCs (Wireless SoCs) are coming, but AFAIK none of those are available yet. In the meantime, Seeed Studio has launched Wio Lite RISC-V board which brings WiFi connectivity to GD32V MCU through an ESP8266 WiFi module. Wio Lite specifications: MCU – Gigadevice GD32VF103CBT6 RISC-V (rv32imac) microcontroller @ 108 MHz with 128KB Flash, 32KB SRAM Wireless Module – ESP8266 WiFi Wio Core with 802.11b/g/n/ WiFi 4 connectivity Storage – MicroSD card slot USB – 1x USB Type-C port for power and programming Expansion – I/O headers for GD32 MCU, I/O header for […]

September 2, 2019September 2, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Espressif ESP-Skainet Voice Assistant Offers Wake Word Engine and Speech Commands Recognition for Embedded MCUs

Skynet is finally here! OK, not quite, but at least we do have ESP-Skainet now courtesy of Espressif Systems. ESP-Skainet is an intelligent voice assistant that features the company’s WakeNet wake word engine and MultiNet speech commands recognition. WakeNet WakeNet has been specifically designed for low-power MCUs such as ESP8266 or ESP32 with a low memory footprint (20KB RAM) and a high calculation speed that makes it capable of achieving a high success rate for wake word detection even in noisy environments. Tested in the company’s upcoming LyraT-Mini audio board that combines an ESP32-WROVER-B module and a codec, WakeNet achieves a 97% wake word success rate at a one-meter distance, and 95% three meters away in a quiet environment. ESP-Skainet wake-up engine ships with the wake-up word “嗨乐鑫” (Hi Lexin), which translates in “Hello Espressif”, and supports up to five wake words. You can use customize wake words as well, […]

August 26, 2019August 25, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Getting Started with ANAVI Gas Detector Starter Kit and Home Assistant

ANAVI Gas Detector is an ESP8266 based board designed for MQ gas sensors supported by Arduino. This allows you to easily monitor air quality, or more accurately air conductivity using MQ-135 sensor as part of the starter kit either visually on the OLED display, or through your smartphone or computer using MQTT via automation platform such as Home Assistant. Leon Anavi sent me an ANAVI Gas Detector Starter Kit to have a look, and I’ll report my experience with the kit using it standalone, and through Home Assistant. Starter Kit Unboxing The kit contains the open-source hardware, ESP8266 based ANAVI Gas Detector board, a plastic stand, an OLED display, a USB to serial adapter, a gas sensor, and a few KiCad and ANAVI stickers. The board itself comes with an ESP8266MOD module, features a micro USB port for power, a reset button, four LEDs, a UART console, a 4-pin GPIO […]

August 20, 2019August 20, 2019 by Siji Sunny - 5 Comments

mDash Cloud platform for IoT Devices Targets ESP8266/ESP32, STM32, and TI CC3220 Wireless MCUs

Cesanta (a company based in Dublin, Ireland) recently launched mDash – an IoT cloud platform for administration of various IoT modules. This platform supports Espressif’s modules ESP32 & ESP8266, STM32 (L4,M4) and TI CC3220, and offers a bunch of features which are known to be challenging tasks in the IoT world. This includes OTA (Over-The-Air) firmware updates, remote configuration and administration, alerts and notifications, remote device control and file management. This can be achieved through 3 programming platforms – Arduino IDE, ESP-IDF and through Mongoose OS. For evaluation and testing purpose mDash offers a simulator that run as a docker container. Refer our previous post, to understand how to get started with Cesanta’s Moongoose OS for ESP8266. Basic WorkFlow mDash Library The company offers reference firmware/library for the defined hardware platforms. This been implements by using secure MQTT for communication, re-connection and initial provisioning with mDash cloud. You can find […]

July 25, 2019July 26, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments

Espressif Systems Gets Listed on the Shanghai Stock Market

Espressif Systems is widely popular community thanks to their low-cost ESP8266 and ESP32 WiFi & Bluetooth SoC, modules, and development kit as well as their extensive software ecosystem, and community support. If you wonder how they did outside of the maker sphere, you don’t need to worry, as the company founded in 2008 is already profitable ($23 US million profit in 2018), and even launched an IPO on the new STAR market for science and technology sectors on the Shanghai stock market that was completed on July 9 and oversubscribed around 2,880 times. A bank source informed me the IPO was only available to local Chinese people, and the IPO price was set to 62.60 CNY ($9.1). Listing started this Monday (July 22, 2019), and the stock has done extremely well with the price having reached 161.54 CNY at the time of writing. For reference, the stock code is 688018, […]

July 22, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 13 Comments

ANAVI Gas Detector ESP8266 Board Monitors Air Quality, Toxic Gases (Crowdfunding)

Leon ANAVI is a software engineer with an interest in open-source hardware, and he had previously launched several ANAVI boards for home automation based on Espressif ESP8266 or for Raspberry Pi boards including ANAVI thermometer, ANAVI light controller, and ANAVI Infrared pHAT among others. Leon has now introduced a new board on Crowd Supply: ANAVI gas detector. The board is powered by ESP8266 WiSoC providing WiFI connectivity, and supports MQ gas sensor modules such as MQ-135, MQ-2, or MQ-3 in order to monitor air quality and detect gas leaks. ANAVI gas detector board specifications: Wireless Module – Based on ESP8266 Tensilica L106 32-bit processor with Wi-Fi 4 802.11 b/g/n connectivity Display – Optional Mini OLED display Gas sensor support – MQ-135 for air quality or any other 5V MQ analog gas sensor Expansion – 3x slots for I²C sensors Debugging / Programming – UART pins for flashing custom firmware Misc […]

July 16, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Arduino based Clover Platform Targets STEM Education in Vietnam

We’re already seen there’s an active maker community in South East Asia with products such as KidBright32 educational board in Thailand, and Singapore & Thailand based MakerAsia’s recent launch of the open-source KB-IDE for ESP32 targets. Vietnam based Clover Team also introduced a STEM platform for students late last year with hardware, an IDE, and a mobile application. The team has made three educational kits: Clover EDU Basic with Clover Master Board and basic modules Clover Car Robot with Clover Master Board, motor, motor driver module, line sensor, distance sensor, Bluetooth module Clover Inventor that includes all items from Clover EDU Basic and Clover Car Robot plus a WiFi module. The Master board is compatible with the Arduino UNO platform (software-wise) and comes with the following key features: Connectivity – Header for ESP8266 WiFi module Expansion – 4x RJ11 ports for input and output with color signs, and compatible with […]

March 18, 2019October 16, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Getting Started with Temperature & Humidity Sensors on ESP8266 using ANAVI Thermometer

ANAVI Thermometer Air / Humidity / Water

ANAVI Thermometer was launched on CrowdSupply in January. It is an ESP8266 WiFi board with a built-in DHT22 temperature and humidity sensor, support for external DS18B20 waterproof temperature sensor, as well as other sensors thanks to three I2C sensors. I received the ANAVI Thermometer starter kit last month, and I’ve only found time to play with it in the last few days. I’ll start with a unboxing, assembly guide, before showing it action, and I’ll try to make it interface with Home Assistant over MQTT. ANAVI Thermometer Starter Kit Unboxing The kit comes with ANAVI Thermometer board, a plastic stand, a USB to TTL debug board, an I2C OLED display, a few nuts and bolts, and a couple of KiCad and ANAVI stickers. Leon ANAVI also added a traffic light board and LEDs, but it’s not normally part of the kit 🙂 ANAVI Thermometer board include an ESP8266 module, AM2302 […]