ESP8285

[hek]

Epressif seems to have released a new wifi chip with integrated 1MB flash (and 2 extra GPIOs compared to ESP8266) and ITead have released a nice module with it mounted.

[scalz]

@Hek
thx for share. always aware of new things It's a cute module.

When I read about 8285, I thought that was nice but not really big improvement.
For this module, my "personal" point of view:

• same as esp8266 with few more IO. always useful (but still same constraints: power consumption, wakeup by external int from deep sleep only by resetting module ..)
• very small, but it's because
• no pcb antenna. With pcb antenna I think it would be a little bit smaller than regular esp..
• 1Mb. one of the minimal size for OTA. but it's maybe not a problem if the app is not so big.
• cheap !

I still don't know what to think I have few esp8266 i like playing with.
but I'm always asking myself if I want wifi (tempting when you see them) instead of subghz to command by air things (because of range, security, signing).
I'm not talking about wire vs radio, but radio vs radio..Sure that's useful you just need a phone for handling your new device, but that's the problem for me maybe not easy to hack i don't know but it's still one more access. when on other subghz side, you need at least a sniffer..and we have signing

So what do you think guys?? I'm interested too, to know your feedback as sometimes I make boards. and maybe my point of view is wrong, we says only dumb never change his mind

[Nca78]

@scalz I agree with you for most of the points about the module. It's a welcome improvement with the extra flash but not a game changer, probably the ESP31 will be much more interesting to make an upgrade.

I'm not so sure about the lack of safety of wifi, on paper the 256bits signing of the atsha is better than wifi, and there tools available to help people break wifi security. But at the same time if someone wants to mess with your devices, that person will know you are using MySensors.
I didn't check how the signing works in MySensors yet, but the content of the messages beeing highly repetitive and a lot of them (all switches for examples) predictable, it's not a good situation for high security ?

[scalz]

@Nca78
I agree with you

8285 is not extra but less flash!
about wifi I was really only referring to the number of accessing points for reading. very basic point sure.

The guy would have to know you're using subghz, and you use mysensors or other, and could take more time if using radio encryption for messages i guess (on rfm69 for instance). And need at least one hardware tool for doing this. For wifi, software. And if you want to disable your wifi...and you have things relying on wifi... i'm asking myself if i'm not overhead on all of this about atsha, i'm not the expert here, but confident in its driver creator

[Nca78]

@scalz right I'm always thinking about the nrf24 because that's all I use at the moment, but for sure with rfm radios having hardware encryption that's much safer.