How to Use an ESP8266 Board as a WiFi to Serial Debug Board

Telnet and SSH are great to access a Linux device, machine and computer remotely when they are already running, but when you are working on the bootloader and/or kernel themselves, you’ll have to use a serial port to access the terminal / serial console. Boards used to get an RS232 port which you connected to your computer with a NULL modem cable, but these days, most boards and devices expose TTL signals and require a USB to TTL debug board to access the console via a USB cable. If you only have one device close to you computer that’s fine, but if your testbed is a little further. or you need to access the serial console on multiple boards you could consider using ESP8266 module to export the terminal over WiFi. This is exactly what Zoobab did above with a GL.inet router running OpenWRT and NodeMCU board with ESP-12(E) module […]

TESPA Hawk IoT Board Combines ESP8266 with STM32 MCU in an Arduino Nano Form Factor (Crowdfunding)

TESPA Hawk is an IoT board designed by three companies based in Thailand and Singapore: Deaware delivers the embedded software for the board, Gravitech handles hardware design and manufacturing, and MakerAsia provides the IoT cloud platform. At first glance, it looks like yet another board based on the popular ESP8266 WiSoC, but it also includes an STM32 micro-controller, and its pinout is the same as Arduino Nano. There are also various add-on boards (WINGs) to easily and quickly prototype IoT projects. TESPA Hawk specifications: WiSoC – Espressif ESP8266 @ 80MHz with 8MB Flash MCU – ST Micro STM32F042G6 ARM Cortex-M0 MCU @ 48MHz with 32KByte Flash, 6KB SRAM Connectivity – WiFI 802.11 b/g/n/ with on-board antenna and u.FL socket for external antenna USB – micro USB port for power and programming Expansion – 2x 16-pin headers (mostly) compatible Arduino Nano pinout including 5-channel full range 3.3V ADC (4x 12-bit, 1x 10-bit), […]

IoT Wi-Fi Modules Comparison Table – ESP8266 vs CC3000 vs RN131 vs HDG204

We now have several options to add WiFi to IoT / embedded projects at relatively low cost, and ESP8266 based solutions clearly wins on costs, but are there some advantages to other higher priced modules? To help us find out, Mike Barela has put up a comparison table with some Wi-FI modules based on Espressif ESP8266, Texas Instruments CC3000, Microchip RN131, and H&D Wireless HDG204 processors. Note 1 – Also comes in Arduino Shield size with SD card slot for $39.95 Note 2 & 3 – Adafruit and Sparkfun sell tested units with AT Firmware for $6.95. lower prices are available on eBay, but quality may vary. Note 4 – Currents are probably somewhat higher than stock ESP-12 due to onboard LED and regulator. The comparison is not exhaustive, but it still appears to show ESP8266 solutions support most features than pricer competing modules. There are however case where competing […]

ESP8266 SDK 1.1.0 is Now Released Under an MIT License

ESP8266 is the now famous dirt-cheap Wi-Fi SoC used for IoT applications. It can be used by hobbyists and companies alike. But for the later, there was a licensing issue as Espressif ESP8266 SDK was initially released under the GPLv3 license. GPL code is great and lots of open source projects are released under the most common open source license. But since proprietary, closed source software has still its place in the market place, some other more permissive licenses such as LGPL are used for library, and Android for example has an Apache License 2.0. So previously, if you developed an application using ESP8266 SDK, you’re code would have to be GPL too, since the license is viral. It would also cause issues if you had released your application under an Apache or MIT license. But now, all is well, as Espressif released ESP8266 SDK 1.10 under an MIT license, […]

$10 Digistump Oak ESP8266EX Board is Arduino Compatible, Connects to the Cloud, and More (Crowdfunding)

A few years ago, I wondered why adding Wi-Fi to Arduino had to be rather expensive ($40+), and why there weren’t any low cost and small form factor Wi-Fi boards for embedded applications. But we’re now in 2015, embedded is “dead” giving rise to IoT, and I’m left wondering how it’s possible to make IoT Wi-Fi modules that cheap, and whether people will ever stop churning out cheap Wi-Fi boards, as I’m flooded with such news weekly… So when I saw yet another ESP8266 board on Kickstarter I was about to dismiss it, but since it was made by Digistump, that has an active community with their other products like DigiSpark Pro or DigiX, I decided to have a closer look. Digistump Oak hardware specifications: MCU – Espressif ESP8266EX 32-bit microprocessor @ 80MHz (overclockable up to 160MHz)  with 1MB ROM (~300KB available for user code), 64KB RAM, 512 bytes EEPROM […]

NodeMCU is both a Breadboard-Friendly ESP8266 Wi-Fi Board and a LUA based Firmware

NodeMCU is a LUA based interactive firmware for Expressif ESP8622 Wi-Fi SoC, as well as an open source hardware board that contrary to the $3 ESP8266 Wi-Fi modules includes a CP2102 TTL to USB chip for programming and debugging, is breadboard-friendly, and can simply be powered via its micro USB port. Let’s checkout the hardware first. The latest version of the board (V1.0) has the following specifications and features: Wi-Fi Module – ESP-12E module similar to ESP-12 module but with 6 extra GPIOs. USB – micro USB port for power, programming and debugging Headers – 2x 2.54mm 15-pin header with access to GPIOs, SPI, UART, ADC, and power pins Misc – Reset and Flash buttons Power – 5V via micro USB port Dimensions – 49 x 24.5 x 13mm The hardware documentation for the board can be found on nodemcu-devkit repo, including schematics and PCB layout designed with Altium Designer, […]

ESP8266 Wi-Fi Module is Now Supported in Arduino IDE

ESP8266 revolutionized the IoT world by offering an ultra low cost Wi-Fi solution either standalone or connected to a micro-controller board via SPI or UART. There are plenty of tutorials on the web to play with the Wi-Fi module, but it’s only recently an Arduino IDE has added support for ESP8266. If you want to try it, you can download the binary for Linux, Windows, or Mac OS X. Since my computer is running Ubuntu 14.04, I download and extracted arduino-1.6.1-linux64.tar.xz to install it in my PC. Now simply run the arduino script to start the IDE, and select to Tools->Board->Generic ESP8266 board. I don’t own an ESP8266 module myself, but Olimex tried it on their ESP8266-EVB: They connected a serial debug board and selected Tools->Port->/dev/ttyUSB0 in the IDE Selected Tools-> Programmer->esptool Loaded Blink example, and modified it to turn on and off the relay on their evaluation board. If […]

Freetronics Introduces an Arduino Shield for ESP8266 ESP-01 Wi-Fi Module

ESP8622 has drastically brought down the price of adding Wi-Fi to MCU boards such as Arduino UNO,  but you need to add some cables, and take care of 3.3V to 5V conversion for the UART pins either with a divider made of 2 resistors, or a FET level shifter, and you may not be able to access all I/O of ESP8622 on the popular ESP-01 version of the module. For a neater solution, Freetronics had designed ESP-01 WiFi Module Shield that takes care of all these small issues. Key features of the shield: 3.3V regulator dedicated to the module Logic level shifters on TX/RX lines: compatible with both 3.3V and 5V Arduino models Selectable TX/RX pins: use D0/D1 for hardware serial, or D2 – D7 for software serial CH_PD pin on ESP-01 module pre-biased for correct operation mode Extra ESP-01 pins broken out for your own connections Prototyping area with […]

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