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I have zero qualms about buying cheap Arduino clone boards because of this. Although lately I've found myself requiring basic IP/wi-fi for almost every usecase

by tpmx 4y ago

I have zero qualms about buying cheap Arduino clone boards because of this. Although lately I've found myself requiring basic IP/wi-fi for almost every usecase, so I've turned to ESP8266/ESP32 boards instead of AVR boards. Here's hoping for a low-cost wi-fi-enabled Raspberry Pi Pico. I wonder what the wi-fi IP licensing cost is like for companies that actually need to pay attention to things like that.

duxup 4y ago
I've found ESP8266 boards really suit my needs more than a "full" Arduino boards, just a few wires and some built in wi-fi is all I want for the most part so far with how I've been using / playing them.
- tgarv 4y ago
  I completely agree, with the exception of wanting easy support for powering from a lipo battery and also charging that battery without disconnecting it. This has led me to use the Adafruit Feather RP2040 lately because it has a builtin lipo charger and will automatically switch between USB and battery power as needed, but of course it doesn't work for projects that need WiFi. I'm hoping that we'll get a board that easily combines the two soon.
  - duxup 4y ago
    Oh I didn’t know about the lipo… did some googling and that seems really handy/ got me thinking. That explains why I haven’t found many battery powered Arduino options…. it is better on other boards. TY
farisjarrah 4y ago
There are RP2040 based boards with wifi are starting to come out. While they aren't horrendously expensive, they are double or triple the cost of a regular base raspberry pi pico model. Here is one I have seen, but I haven't used or played with it. https://thepihut.com/products/challenger-rp2040-wifi-chip-antenna https://thepihut.com/products/challenger-rp2040-wifi-chip-an...
- tpmx 4y ago
  "The WiFi section on this board is based on the Espressif ESP8285 chip which basically is an ESP8266 with 1MByte FLASH memory integrated onto the chip". I suppose I'm wishing for an Espressif-like approach. A (low-power?) RPxxxx core fully assigned to running a Wi-Fi software stack, in the same RPxxxx chip, along with having the analogue RF aspects handled by the same chip/package.
alar44 4y ago
Well yeah I mean "Arduino" is just a couple #defines to make a sort of custom C++ version. After a couple months playing with it, most people shouldn't need anything Arduino anymore.

by tpmx 4y ago

duxup 4y ago

I've found ESP8266 boards really suit my needs more than a "full" Arduino boards, just a few wires and some built in wi-fi is all I want for the most part so far with how I've been using / playing them.

tgarv 4y ago
I completely agree, with the exception of wanting easy support for powering from a lipo battery and also charging that battery without disconnecting it. This has led me to use the Adafruit Feather RP2040 lately because it has a builtin lipo charger and will automatically switch between USB and battery power as needed, but of course it doesn't work for projects that need WiFi. I'm hoping that we'll get a board that easily combines the two soon.
- duxup 4y ago
  Oh I didn’t know about the lipo… did some googling and that seems really handy/ got me thinking. That explains why I haven’t found many battery powered Arduino options…. it is better on other boards. TY

farisjarrah 4y ago

There are RP2040 based boards with wifi are starting to come out. While they aren't horrendously expensive, they are double or triple the cost of a regular base raspberry pi pico model. Here is one I have seen, but I haven't used or played with it. https://thepihut.com/products/challenger-rp2040-wifi-chip-antenna https://thepihut.com/products/challenger-rp2040-wifi-chip-an...

tpmx 4y ago
"The WiFi section on this board is based on the Espressif ESP8285 chip which basically is an ESP8266 with 1MByte FLASH memory integrated onto the chip". I suppose I'm wishing for an Espressif-like approach. A (low-power?) RPxxxx core fully assigned to running a Wi-Fi software stack, in the same RPxxxx chip, along with having the analogue RF aspects handled by the same chip/package.

alar44 4y ago

Well yeah I mean "Arduino" is just a couple #defines to make a sort of custom C++ version. After a couple months playing with it, most people shouldn't need anything Arduino anymore.