KILLER KILLER

As someone has put up an article entitled “ESP8266 Killer?” I thought I’d better step in..

There are two boards to look out for on Ebay – the EMW3165 – http://goo.gl/ccWgtT

and the NL6621-Y1 – http://goo.gl/qdMhtm

I noted one article suggested the EMW3165 was “just a dollar more than the ESP8266” – just in case anyone believed that – a simple comparison of Ebay prices brings the ESP-12 in at under £2  the NL6621 at £3 and the EMW3165 at £8.52

So I don’t think Espressif have anything to worry about yet and one could ask where all the documentation and examples are and development systems for these boards…

Anyone know better than me on this one?

7 thoughts on “KILLER KILLER

  1. so – the EMQW3165 can be had for a more reasonable price here at AliExpress.. http://goo.gl/eVcedd

    £7 so still many times more expensive than an ESP8266 but I guess if you compare like for like – i.e. a module with power supply etc, this module is not bad. I guess the important thing however is this one man show thing… does the software work and work reliably – has anyone done any more than the usual 5 minute “I’ve a flashing light working” – has the MQTT been tested over a period of time. Once I stick something in the loft I don’t want to be bringing it down every 5 minutes. I guess features which do appeal on the surface include 128MB RAM – but my experiences with Lua to date indicate that it’s a bit toy – I might be wrong in this case – I guess there is only one way to find out…

    On the other hand..looking at the manual we are back to “here’s how to flash a light” or “here’s how to setup a basic webserver that doesn’t really do anything”… I must’ve read the wrong manual as I could see no detailed information as to how to use any of the peripherals, MQTT etc… someone care to point me in the right direction?

    1. My experience with LUA on the ESP has been that it is a memory hog – I implemented an MQTT enabled doorbell, with a DHT-22 Temp+Humidity sensor. Wasn’t exactly rocket science, and I found I was running out of memory trying to do some additional bits.

      That’s not to say it doesn’t have it’s place for simple projects (or perhaps on a chip with 128MB of memory), but if you want to take full advantage of the available resources, having an interpreter running on the same chip might not be the best idea.

      That being said, LUA on the ESP has been stable – I have two projects (the doorbell and a two relay mains lighting controller) that run via MQTT for months at a time without issues. The main issue is my WIFI reconnect code needs some TLC – my fault, not LUA’s, but WIFI failures are the only times they have needed a reboot.

      1. I stopped using Lua – despite loving the language – as I was just keep hitting limits. Try to do more than a couple of things at once and you’re stuffed. I might give it a shot on one of the other WIFI processors floating around. I spent a lot of time on WIFI reconnects – hence the twin access point option on my software – and MQTT disconnects and reconnects. The total solution is not that elegant but at least I’m confident it will recover from pretty much any situation.

  2. EMW3165 was released almost year ago.
    I’ve seen it at Seeedstudio http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/EMW3165-p-2488.html
    Before was EMW3162
    And after year on market there is no community. Killer is dead.

    NL6621 is new kid on the block, but i don’t thinks it will kick ass Espressif, Community rules.

    BTW, have you seen H801 RGBWW LED Controller?

    Price $9: http://www.aliexpress.com/item/DC5-24V-Smart-LED-Dimmer-Light-Controller-WiFi-APP-Controlled-Wireless-Receiver-Output-5-Routes-PWM/32636503790.html
    Reviews
    https://eryk.io/2015/10/esp8266-based-wifi-rgb-controller-h801/
    Forums:
    http://www.domoticz.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=7957
    http://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/esp8266-led-driver-h801-aliexpress-led-driver-board/

    Git:
    https://gist.github.com/erykio/957f90a4567189880b78
    https://github.com/patrickjahns/esp_rgbww_firmware

    It looks like silver bullet for RGB LED, what do you think?

    1. Well,I have seen more than that on SEED site that is old! So this RGBW controller you mention – I guess it depends how easy it is to code for it yourself. I like controlling everything through MQTT and hence am seriously considering an add-on board to that new Nextion/general purpose board we did to supply a set of MOSFETS for RGB control.

      1. Ordered one yesterday. Will send results when it will be in my hands.

        I think connect RGB-string to Nextion is not good idea. Because LEDs and displays in general have different places, you have to establish wire connection.

        Anyway if you make your own device additional functionality such as MOSFETs or relays is a good and useful bonus. 🙂

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