Announcement: ESPimaticRF coming soon

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Ok, also I asked the Cina man to speed up his boad a little . Will test it soon!

I’m I right that it is possible to remove the RX and TX from my raspberry and only use an ESP over wifi somewhere else (more central) in my house by using the same API key?

That is correct, though currently you will still need 2 ESPs: one connected to the Raspberry to act as homeduino device (with or without RX/TX hardware), one can be placed somewhere you like best.

In theory you can use only one ESP with ESPimatic in ‘node’ mode. The node will capture RF traffice from air and send over wifi to Pimatic. But then you should keep the original ardiono with sender/receiver attached to the Pi. With that setup you wont benefit from SENDING some RF over wifi, but surely makes you able to RECEIVE RF traffice over wifi.

Hi, interesting read this thread. (Also the Tweakers.net one). Great work KoffieNL! I was looking for such a solution.

So, I am ready to click “BUY” on any site that will delivery the required hardware, fast-ish. Now I’m wondering what ESP8266 do I need. I see a Wemos or a NodeMCU. So I guess, this >

https://iotmodules.co.uk/esp8266/new-arduino-wemos-d1-mini-esp8266-nodemcu-development-board

or this >

http://www.dx.com/nl/p/esp8266-esp-12e-development-board-serial-wi-fi-module-for-nodemcu-441215?tc=EUR&gclid=Cj0KEQiAx7XBBRCdyNOw6PLHrYABEiQAJtyEQ3n8dep_kdDVAeO5Be_WoNr4uC8CwXEmQshDeVEOSKoaAmL48P8HAQ#.WC4Rw-bhCHs

should work. Right? Could you post the a link to the ESP8266’s you use yourselfs? That would really help in finding a site selling the right ones.

Thanks in advance!

Regards,

Ruud

The first one is the same Wemos as I use. For now I have attached the Wemos to my NAS to port the ESP to my virtual machine for development with ESPimaticRF.
I like the Wemos because it’s small (unsoldered) and for test I don’t need any RF hardware attached to it.
This is the NodeMCU I use as a node, it makes it really easy to directly connect some RF hardware to the breakout pins : https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Wireless-module-NodeMcu-Lua-WIFI-Internet-of-Things-development-board-based-ESP8266-CP2102-with-pcb-Antenna/32265993979.html?spm=2114.13010608.0.0.CnJ5Rd

@koffienl Great thanks, for the fast reply!!

the wemos has a big advantage - it can be used on a breadboard and you are still able to plug jumerwires besides it!
also the wemos provides a 5V pin, so you can power up 5V hardware such as the receiver or transmitter without any other power source or fiddling around
AND - the wemos comes with three different pinheaders, so you can choose your usecase.

@leader21 I think my NoceMCU provides 5v on the VIN port. the RF modules work on the VIN port, but haven’t tested what voltage is coming out of the VIN :P
Other advantage on the Wemos : it doesn’t reset the chip when you make a serial connection on the USB port (a NodeMCU will restart).

@koffienl @leader21 Wemos it will be!

@koffienl said in Announcement: ESPimaticRF coming soon:

@leader21 I think my NoceMCU provides 5v on the VIN port.

Yes, it does. Just “linking” through from the USB port.
I prefer the nodemcu as I hate to have to solder pins to a mini board.
And the Nodecmu V3’s are now very cheap

@leader21 said in Announcement: ESPimaticRF coming soon:

the wemos has a big advantage - it can be used on a breadboard and you are still able to plug jumerwires besides it!

So do the Nodemcu V1, V2 and V3. Only the first 0.9 nodemcu was too wide to use it on a mini breadbord with additional jumper wires.

@Harry-van-der-Wolf I think what he means : the Wemos comes with extended headers, so you can stack several Wemos (and compatible modules).

I prefer Wemos as they are a bit more flexible: they come without headers soldered, but several types of headers are provided in the package so you can adapt them to however you need them. Also the shields are nice. Nothing against NodeMCU though, they are fine as well. No bad choices, only different options

Hello,

Okay… so i´m using ESPimaticRF since 5 days. Imigrated from original Homeduino with Arduino to the ESPimaticRF

Pro: it feels “faster”, when switching or press a button it is reacting faster. All protocolls that i was using with the arduino part, is working with ESPimaticRF.

Now to the bad part:

It seems that i have problems with some shutter devices ! First i thought it is
because of a bad receiption, but the shutter was located only 4 m away ! Other switches which are located in the basement are receiving the code without any problems.

My thought: Maybe there are interferences with RF code and the Wifi of the ESP -device itself ?
it would be a pitty but if the problems are still present i have to revert everything back.

@hyperx Thanks for feedback!
What exactly is the issue with the shutter device? Simply not responding?

Can you do the following for me : take the ESP (node) that is sending the RF broadcast and hook up to a PC with Arduino IDE and open up Serial Monitor. Now send switch the shutter on pimatic and paste output from the Serial Monitor in this topic (if possible with debug data from homdeuino in Pimatic).

@koffienl said in Announcement: ESPimaticRF coming soon:

@hyperx Thanks for feedback!
What exactly is the issue with the shutter device? Simply not responding?

Can you do the following for me : take the ESP (node) that is sending the RF broadcast and hook up to a PC with Arduino IDE and open up Serial Monitor. Now send switch the shutter on pimatic and paste output from the Serial Monitor in this topic (if possible with debug data from homdeuino in Pimatic).

Very hard to reconstruct ! After 2nd or 3rd try the shutter is responding. Most of the time the shutter is responding as expected.
It is just “sometimes” that is not receiving the broadcast.
I´m currently not at home, i will try later.
Just to notice: I remember in the past when i was installing homeduino (using more than 1,5 years) the receiver and transmitter was located in the near of my router, i also noticed more interruption…
We all know that 433 Mhz issn´t the best choice for being 100 % reliable, but it could be that wifi “can” interrupt the RF broadcast.

If possible, please try the test - it’s the only option to figure out what’s going wrong
Also, please try to do this at the location where the ESPimaticRF node is laying around currently. Based on the Serial Monitor log we can determine if it’s a problem between homeduino -> node , or node -> RF

(also : what is the current number of UDP repeats on the ESPimaticRF homeduino ESP ? )

UDP repeats are = 3

ok. When doing the test, try to raise the UDP repeats to see it that helps (you need to restart the homeduino to take effect).

Koffie wrote: "In theory you can use only one ESP with ESPimatic in ‘node’ mode. "

Is this only theory or can you use the node just as receiver of Rf signals.

If not, are there plans for make this work?

Thanks.

@lschip
you can use more then one node. had 4 nodes for testing running at the same time. you can use the nodes for receiving only. thats possible.