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The ESP chips are not trivial to hook up, unless you get something like a NodeMCU. The original breakouts are not breadboard friendly, and they have (comparativ
by joshvm 9y ago
The ESP chips are not trivial to hook up, unless you get something like a NodeMCU. The original breakouts are not breadboard friendly, and they have (comparatively) weird requirements for programming (e.g. some pins need to be pulled up, which means you need to breakout the breakout boards). They're also not 5V tolerant, which means you normally need a regulator and have to worry about interfacing. The documentation is OK, but it's a warren of official documentation, Wikis, Github and forum posts.
I would say that the Arduino advantage is that it's truly out of the box. ESP8266 is close, but it's not that easy.
If you want an easy IoT dev board, I will always recommend the Particle Photon (no affiliation). It's $20 and has really great documentation. It will do OTA updates out of the box once you've set it up on your network using a smartphone. It's a separate IDE (cloud based, or you can get an offline one), but you still use Wiring and they've retained the setup() / loop() constructs. I have had some issues with devices not connecting to networks using the chip antenna, so you probably need the external one.
Other minor issues - most ESP boards are not FCC/CE compliant. They're just fake stamps on the EM shield. Some of the boards are, but you need to be careful if you're trying to build a product or worry about interference. The Photon, on the other hand, is certified (and they also certified it with a suitable external antenna).
- m-p-3 9y agoThe nice thing about working on 3V is that they're stupidly easy to power using 2AA batteries, but I agree it's a bummer they're not 5V tolerant otherwise it would be as easy to power over USB.
- gh02t 9y agoThey are 5V tolerent on the logic pins, just not on the power. LiFePO4 batteries work great for powering them as their voltage curve matches perfectly without regulation.
- earleybird 9y agoAnd, the built in A/D will give you the current voltage reading with no additional wiring so you can post it to your MQTT instance and monitor when you need to change/charge your LiPO :-)
- IgorPartola 9y agoMy understanding is that this is mostly a dangerous myth. Like it sort of works but you really shouldn’t unless you are ok frying the board. I have been sticking with mostly 3V components and have a separate set of rails and transistors to control that side of things.
- satoshinm 9y agoAccording to the CEO of Espressif, Teo Swee Ann, the I/O pins of the ESP8266 are 5V tolerant. See discussion here: https://hackaday.com/2016/07/28/ask-hackaday-is-the-esp8266-5v-tolerant/ https://hackaday.com/2016/07/28/ask-hackaday-is-the-esp8266-... and official reply on Facebook (of all places): https://www.facebook.com/groups/1499045113679103/permalink/1731855033731442/?hc_location=ufi https://www.facebook.com/groups/1499045113679103/permalink/1... > Teo Swee Ann i can reply officially here: it is 5V tolerant at the IO. while the supply voltage is at 3.3V.
- gh02t 9y agoNo, that's wrong. The signal pins absolutely are 5V tolerant (confirmed by the CEO of Espressif) and work perfectly but if you put 5V to VCC it will fry instantly. I know from experience, in both cases. It used to be the case that people were unsure if the logic pins were 5V tolerant or not due to ambiguity in the datasheet and the consensus was to be cautious, but it has since been officially confirmed that they are tolerant. Some other devices (e.g. relays, some MOSFET gates) might require a 5V output level to trigger, in which case you will need a level shifter/transistor, but 5V inputs to the pins are fine (and most digital devices that work at 5V logic levels will be fine with 3.3V logical high due to the way TTL levels are defined).
- IgorPartola 9y agoThanks for the info. I stand corrected.
- IgorPartola 9y agoWemos chips are breadboard friendly and while they require hat you solder the pins, that is pretty trivial and something you will need to learn anyways. Yes there are loads of other breakout boards that suck but I found Wemos ones to be great.
- halbritt 9y agoThere's a ton of decent boards: Adafruit Huzzah https://www.adafruit.com/product/2471 https://www.adafruit.com/product/2471 NodeMCU is good, there's a ton on ebay.