5 ms·

I've been playing with these ESP8266 devices lately and they're incredible. They sip power, they cost 2 bucks, and are incredibly versatile. Watch these chips i

by milge 10y ago

I've been playing with these ESP8266 devices lately and they're incredible. They sip power, they cost 2 bucks, and are incredibly versatile. Watch these chips in the future. They're really gonna push the envelope for the IoT.

icebraining 10y ago
The range is quite impressive as well. A real world test[1] showed 366m (almost a quarter mile) with just the PCB antenna. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BYdZ_24yg0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BYdZ_24yg0
- milge 10y ago
  That's great to know. I'm just finishing up an sms messaging water detector. My next project is going to be a small mesh network in the woods. Haven't seen any range tests yet, so this is great news.
  - 1024core 10y ago
    > I'm just finishing up an sms messaging water detector. Sounds interesting. I'd love to know more about it; if you could share the details with us, it would be highly appreciated.
    - milge 10y ago
      Sure. I only have a short video of it working right now. Please forgive the music: https://www.instagram.com/p/BEywYH2Q6n_/ https://www.instagram.com/p/BEywYH2Q6n_/ I'm using an amica nodemcu board paired with a sainrite water level sensor. It's powered off of a cell phone battery charger for now. The code is all in C. I use twilio to send texts. The final thing I need to build is a way to wake the device up from sleep when water is detected. Doing so should let it run for a very long time. (year(s)) I have a few ideas for a solution, but have been swamped lately.
      - StavrosK 10y ago
        If your sensor outputs high when it detects water, use a transistor or MOSFET to pull RST low when water is detected, and send a message. I used that trick to make my emergency food button (a button that orders food when you press it): https://www.stavros.io/posts/emergency-food-button/ https://www.stavros.io/posts/emergency-food-button/ You won't get away with not powering the detector, though, so depending on its power draw it might be moot.
        milge 10y ago
        Nice writeup. Someone gave me a great idea of running an ATTiny to send a wake command to the ESP when water is detected. I'm going to try a few different ways and compare battery usage.
      - 1024core 10y ago
        I can't seem to find any info on the "sainrite water level sensor" ; could it be a typo?
        milge 10y ago
        Yes, sorry. This is the one I'm using: http://www.amazon.com/SainSmart-Sensitivity-Arduino-Mega2560-Duemilanove/dp/B00CO2SPGS http://www.amazon.com/SainSmart-Sensitivity-Arduino-Mega2560... Just search for analog water sensor and you'll see a few like this labeled by different companies. There are some that are probably cheaper.
  - extra88 10y ago
    Instead of a WiFi mesh at 2.4GHz, why not a low-power radio like the RFM69 with a much longer range? I'm assuming your next project also requires low data rates like the water detector.
    - milge 10y ago
      I'd like to test the bluetooth functionality of the ESP32 to see power consumption of that vs wifi. My requirement will be cell phones connecting to this mesh network. Data rates aren't a concern for the next project. The mesh nodes should connect to each other. And on everyone's phone, it should look like one wireless network.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
gol706 10y ago
I can't wait for the ESP32 to become generally available. Bluetooth, way more IO, dual core processor. Basically taking all the lessons of repurposing the ESP8266 as a IoT board and applying it to a purpose built chip that is still supposed to be dirt cheap compared to things like a Particle Photon.
- milge 10y ago
  I emailed espressif yesterday seeing if I could pay for a beta ESP32 since I've got the hang of working on these devices. They said I had to wait til august for general release :(
daurnimator 10y ago
I was playing around with them until I realised they're incapable of being secure. They only have enough ram for one, maybe two TLS sessions at once; to make things worse, no one has written support for modern (secure) ciphers. The SSL stacks that come with the Espressif SDK are vulnerable to almost every attack you've probably heard of. Slightly better (but not fixed) is https://github.com/superhouse/esp-open-rtos https://github.com/superhouse/esp-open-rtos. I could no longer rationalise being party to the propagation of the "internet of insecure things". Instead, spend the extra $7 and use something with a bit more power, like a C.H.I.P. http://getchip.com http://getchip.com then you can write normal programs (it's a full linux OS) and not be limited to only insecure protocols.
- goda90 10y ago
  Is the lack of modern ciphers fixable in software? There are plenty of use cases for one TLS session as are there use cases where security doesn't matter, like sending sensor data.
  - callalex 10y ago
    There is no such thing as a case where security doesn't matter. Even if a sensor isn't detecting something sensitive, it is probably being fed into a system that does need to be secure and now you have an easy entry point.
  - daurnimator 10y ago
    > Is the lack of modern ciphers fixable in software? There are plenty of use cases for one TLS session as are there use cases where security doesn't matter, like sending sensor data. They don't have enough resources for an 4096 bit RSA negotiation, so they top out at 2048 bit. You may be able to use some of the newer elliptical curve stuff. I was going to try and get nacl/libsodium working on them, but gave up when I realised I can just use a more powerful board instead.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

by milge 10y ago

icebraining 10y ago

The range is quite impressive as well. A real world test[1] showed 366m (almost a quarter mile) with just the PCB antenna. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BYdZ_24yg0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BYdZ_24yg0

milge 10y ago
That's great to know. I'm just finishing up an sms messaging water detector. My next project is going to be a small mesh network in the woods. Haven't seen any range tests yet, so this is great news.
- 1024core 10y ago
  > I'm just finishing up an sms messaging water detector. Sounds interesting. I'd love to know more about it; if you could share the details with us, it would be highly appreciated.
  - milge 10y ago
    Sure. I only have a short video of it working right now. Please forgive the music: https://www.instagram.com/p/BEywYH2Q6n_/ https://www.instagram.com/p/BEywYH2Q6n_/ I'm using an amica nodemcu board paired with a sainrite water level sensor. It's powered off of a cell phone battery charger for now. The code is all in C. I use twilio to send texts. The final thing I need to build is a way to wake the device up from sleep when water is detected. Doing so should let it run for a very long time. (year(s)) I have a few ideas for a solution, but have been swamped lately.
    - StavrosK 10y ago
      If your sensor outputs high when it detects water, use a transistor or MOSFET to pull RST low when water is detected, and send a message. I used that trick to make my emergency food button (a button that orders food when you press it): https://www.stavros.io/posts/emergency-food-button/ https://www.stavros.io/posts/emergency-food-button/ You won't get away with not powering the detector, though, so depending on its power draw it might be moot.
      - milge 10y ago
        Nice writeup. Someone gave me a great idea of running an ATTiny to send a wake command to the ESP when water is detected. I'm going to try a few different ways and compare battery usage.
    - 1024core 10y ago
      I can't seem to find any info on the "sainrite water level sensor" ; could it be a typo?
      - milge 10y ago
        Yes, sorry. This is the one I'm using: http://www.amazon.com/SainSmart-Sensitivity-Arduino-Mega2560-Duemilanove/dp/B00CO2SPGS http://www.amazon.com/SainSmart-Sensitivity-Arduino-Mega2560... Just search for analog water sensor and you'll see a few like this labeled by different companies. There are some that are probably cheaper.
- extra88 10y ago
  Instead of a WiFi mesh at 2.4GHz, why not a low-power radio like the RFM69 with a much longer range? I'm assuming your next project also requires low data rates like the water detector.
  - milge 10y ago
    I'd like to test the bluetooth functionality of the ESP32 to see power consumption of that vs wifi. My requirement will be cell phones connecting to this mesh network. Data rates aren't a concern for the next project. The mesh nodes should connect to each other. And on everyone's phone, it should look like one wireless network.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

gol706 10y ago

I can't wait for the ESP32 to become generally available. Bluetooth, way more IO, dual core processor. Basically taking all the lessons of repurposing the ESP8266 as a IoT board and applying it to a purpose built chip that is still supposed to be dirt cheap compared to things like a Particle Photon.

milge 10y ago
I emailed espressif yesterday seeing if I could pay for a beta ESP32 since I've got the hang of working on these devices. They said I had to wait til august for general release :(

daurnimator 10y ago

I was playing around with them until I realised they're incapable of being secure. They only have enough ram for one, maybe two TLS sessions at once; to make things worse, no one has written support for modern (secure) ciphers. The SSL stacks that come with the Espressif SDK are vulnerable to almost every attack you've probably heard of. Slightly better (but not fixed) is https://github.com/superhouse/esp-open-rtos https://github.com/superhouse/esp-open-rtos. I could no longer rationalise being party to the propagation of the "internet of insecure things". Instead, spend the extra $7 and use something with a bit more power, like a C.H.I.P. http://getchip.com http://getchip.com then you can write normal programs (it's a full linux OS) and not be limited to only insecure protocols.

goda90 10y ago
Is the lack of modern ciphers fixable in software? There are plenty of use cases for one TLS session as are there use cases where security doesn't matter, like sending sensor data.
- callalex 10y ago
  There is no such thing as a case where security doesn't matter. Even if a sensor isn't detecting something sensitive, it is probably being fed into a system that does need to be secure and now you have an easy entry point.
- daurnimator 10y ago
  > Is the lack of modern ciphers fixable in software? There are plenty of use cases for one TLS session as are there use cases where security doesn't matter, like sending sensor data. They don't have enough resources for an 4096 bit RSA negotiation, so they top out at 2048 bit. You may be able to use some of the newer elliptical curve stuff. I was going to try and get nacl/libsodium working on them, but gave up when I realised I can just use a more powerful board instead.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]