[chbot] ESP8266 vs ESP32

[Stephen Irons]

I'm not sure whether the limitation is with the way Micropython implements
the low-power modes, or with the internal design of the ESP32 itself.
Pycom advertise a 5 µA sleep mode for the WiPy, but it has all peripherals
and interrupts off and the CPU stopped. The only way out is a hard reset
from an RTC alarm. There are two other modes with various devices and
interrupts enabled, but (from memory) those use 100s of microamps or a
handfuls of milliamps.

Our client wanted something that would last for a few weeks in the field at
a couple of sites, and the obvious solution was a bigger battery rather
than days (or more likely, weeks) of engineering. We were very pushed for
time (one week to get it ready to deploy). Our sensor devices (capacitive
sensors and Grideye 8x8 pixel thermal camera) used some milliamps each, so
we were unlikely to get better than weeks anyway. Using (micro-) python was
great for getting it going in a hurry.

Now that we have real data from actual operation in the field, we can
assess whether our sensors will work as we expected, and will do a proper
low-power design.

Stephen


On 11 April 2017 at 09:14, Charles Manning <cdhmanning at gmail.com> wrote:

> Stephen
>
> If you want low power/long batter life then, unfortunately, you need to
> design for it.
>
> About 18 months ago I did a BTLE project using those Nordic Semi nRF51822
> parts. That has an incredibly good sleep profile and you can get one of
> those to wake up from BTLE sub-second and still get months of battery life.
>
> If you then can use a part like this to power up the power hungry
> components when required you might be able to make a nice deep sleeping
> system.
>
> -- Charles
>
>
>
> On Mon, Apr 10, 2017 at 9:19 PM, <stephen.irons at clear.net.nz> wrote:
>
>> I have used the ESP32 as included on the recently released WiPy2 module,
>> as well as the LoPy (EPS32 with an additional LoRa radio device connected
>> via SPI). These are available from www.pycom.io.
>>
>> I have used Wi-Fi and LoRa only. One of our guys has played with the BLE,
>> I wll ask how well it worked.
>>
>> I have not tested the Wi-Fi range; we use it around the office only. The
>> LoRa range was phenomenal (but very low data rate).
>>
>> The WiPy family run MicroPython. It works rather well, but, as expected
>> with firmware that is only a few months old, there are a number of
>> significant bugs in both the ESP development tools and the Micropython
>> firmware (but obviously no problems with my Python code!)
>>
>> The Micropython firmware includes libraries for SPI and I2C which I have
>> used to talk to other devices (temperature sensors, Panasonic Grideye
>> device, etc).
>>
>> The Micropython firmware also has drivers for various LCD modules, as
>> well as libraries for drawing lines and text on full-graphics LCDs. I have
>> not actually used these libraries. I'm not sure about 480x320 pixels: most
>> examples are for 128x96, with 12K pixels rather than 150K.
>>
>> Power consumption is disappointingly high, if that is a concern. 2xAA
>> cells would last days or weeks with Wi-Fi off, rather than months or years.
>>
>> Stephen Irons
>>
>> On Thu, Apr 6, 2017 at 11:28 PM, Robin Gilks <robin at gilks.org> wrote:
>>
>> I know a few peeps have used the ESP8266 but I wonder if anyone has tried
>> the newer all shiny ESP32 (dual core, BLE etc). I'm particularly interested
>> in the range compared to say a Lantronics XPICO which is physically about
>> the same size (maybe a bit bigger) and whether the GPIO can drive a small
>> (say 480x320) tft display in either 8 bit or SPI modes (I can't see enough
>> pins for 16 bit). Cheers
>> --
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