ESP32 Support to enable the powerful ESP32 + RFM95/Lora + LiPo battery boards
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@NeverDie you're right. and for home use+coincell, regarding internal resistance vs RF TX etc, nrf52 is still a better bet I think ;)
but as usual, power consumption is not about numbers only.. it depends on a lot of factors (sdk, hw design etc).
@heinzv
I'm also a esp32 forum reader, etc. and don't get me wrong, esp32 is nice as it's my favorite for a gw.
I already designed a few boards for esp32, some very old with lora when esp32 was just released.., and I like a lot looking at hw designs.
And what I can tell, is the boards you linked will never reach the uA range, they may stay in mA range!
Have you measured power consumption of yours?- the ulp functions are not integrated in arduino yet. yes, more than a year that esp32 is there, but I think they are very busy with esp-idf. there a few posts about ULP in the arduino section, soon or later, this should be available.
- the esp32 user you mentioned on the esp32 forum, is well known, agreed, and I don't think he reached 6uA with the boards you linked. I think he got this with custom board or standalone mcu. Not sure, if he used arduino too, maybe esp-idf only. Sure it's possible to import arduino as a component in esp-idf, I don't think most of people go this way..
- the boards you linked will also never reach these low power consumption because of their circuit design, they are not optimized!
https://github.com/Heltec-Aaron-Lee/WiFi_Kit_series/issues/6
And if you take a look at TTN forums, you'll see same feedbacks..
That's the same for lolin boards..
Like I said, if you're searching for uA range, a board looking cheap doesn't make it a good deal..
I feel this more a battle about who sells more than who sells good quality, and they have cheaper fab cost, sourcing cost, tax, free shipping etc so that's easier. And then buyers see great price and buy, and stores sell, sell volume, because unfortunately not all buyers have insightful eyes!
Good for stores, the cheap price trick will always work, sort of societal problem!
I noticed also same kind of problems on some tindie stores, so that's not ali only. Maybe good for devboard (and that's depends on the feature you want to test), but then in production it's another story.
And for example, I wouldn't like to have neighboors with bad rf designs polluting my frequencies (hopefully I live in country side).I'm sure you'll find some good use for your boards, unfortunately not with a great battery lifetime. Here, I'm always after n years of operation than 6months-a year, I prefer less maintenance on nodes.
about your wallplug device, I don't have this device so I can't tell on my side. The ic reference you mentioned may be not related to the ic part but just an id. did you say that someone hacked a similar ic? if you have a link we maybe could help, software then should be a piece of cake :)
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All that said, I like LoRa a lot. Practically speaking, in a home environment the packets get to their destination virtually every time on the first try. That's big! I just don't see the "need" on a battery operated LoRa for an ESP32, that's all. But maybe that's just me, as I'm doing fairly simple stuff. Perhaps for the OP, the mere existence of off-the-shelf integrated boards makes them more convenient to acquire and use. At least I could imagine that being true for some people. That may be a not insubstantial market segment.
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maybe he just needs some extra computing power. Isn't LoRa transmission time slower than regular radio modules?
@gohan said in ESP32 Support to enable the powerful ESP32 + RFM95/Lora + LiPo battery boards:
Isn't LoRa transmission time slower than regular radio modules?
Definitely yes. It's not without downsides.
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All that said, I like LoRa a lot. Practically speaking, in a home environment the packets get to their destination virtually every time on the first try. That's big! I just don't see the "need" on a battery operated LoRa for an ESP32, that's all. But maybe that's just me, as I'm doing fairly simple stuff. Perhaps for the OP, the mere existence of off-the-shelf integrated boards makes them more convenient to acquire and use. At least I could imagine that being true for some people. That may be a not insubstantial market segment.
@neverdie I have not yet measured the power consumption in deep sleep, but I will certainly verify it (I have ordered a multimeter with a 0-60uA rage). I 'll let you know.
The battery powered wall mounted devices with e-paper is something I'll build. If the ESP32 Lora board is not what I expect, I need, what other choises do I have? Buying a nrf52 board (some have a battery management) with a RFM95? Do you think that is the better choice? The nrf52 board are not cheap.
What combination would you recommend?
I also have STM32F1 with 128kb flash, but the look also not so convient to me.
I have gone through many articles and watched many videos and did not get the impression, that the ESP32 is wrong for efficient battery usage.
Here is one video with an ESP32 board a guy measured with a Fluke 5.x uA in RTC timer deep sleep and 6.5uA in GPIO deep sleep. So in principal the ESP32 is the right choice but I believe you, that some the boards I have chosen are not the most energy efficient ones without tweaking. I have a couple of other ESP32 boards, maby I have to combine them with my RFM95 modules I also own to get down in the uA range.
Here is the 5 to 6 uA measured ESP32 board
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NDq6hC9KJo -
@neverdie I have not yet measured the power consumption in deep sleep, but I will certainly verify it (I have ordered a multimeter with a 0-60uA rage). I 'll let you know.
The battery powered wall mounted devices with e-paper is something I'll build. If the ESP32 Lora board is not what I expect, I need, what other choises do I have? Buying a nrf52 board (some have a battery management) with a RFM95? Do you think that is the better choice? The nrf52 board are not cheap.
What combination would you recommend?
I also have STM32F1 with 128kb flash, but the look also not so convient to me.
I have gone through many articles and watched many videos and did not get the impression, that the ESP32 is wrong for efficient battery usage.
Here is one video with an ESP32 board a guy measured with a Fluke 5.x uA in RTC timer deep sleep and 6.5uA in GPIO deep sleep. So in principal the ESP32 is the right choice but I believe you, that some the boards I have chosen are not the most energy efficient ones without tweaking. I have a couple of other ESP32 boards, maby I have to combine them with my RFM95 modules I also own to get down in the uA range.
Here is the 5 to 6 uA measured ESP32 board
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NDq6hC9KJo@heinzv said in ESP32 Support to enable the powerful ESP32 + RFM95/Lora + LiPo battery boards:
Here is one video with an ESP32 board a guy measured with a Fluke 5.x uA in RTC timer deep sleep and 6.5uA in GPIO deep sleep. So in principal the ESP32 is the right choice but I believe you, that some the boards I have chosen are not the most energy efficient ones without tweaking. I have a couple of other ESP32 boards, maby I have to combine them with my RFM95 modules I also own to get down in the uA range.
That's exactly what I meant, I was just talking about the other boards.
then, regarding the right choice, it all depends on the usecase I think, not so evident. but for your project sure it's a nice mcu, actually having fun with it too ;) -
@neverdie I have not yet measured the power consumption in deep sleep, but I will certainly verify it (I have ordered a multimeter with a 0-60uA rage). I 'll let you know.
The battery powered wall mounted devices with e-paper is something I'll build. If the ESP32 Lora board is not what I expect, I need, what other choises do I have? Buying a nrf52 board (some have a battery management) with a RFM95? Do you think that is the better choice? The nrf52 board are not cheap.
What combination would you recommend?
I also have STM32F1 with 128kb flash, but the look also not so convient to me.
I have gone through many articles and watched many videos and did not get the impression, that the ESP32 is wrong for efficient battery usage.
Here is one video with an ESP32 board a guy measured with a Fluke 5.x uA in RTC timer deep sleep and 6.5uA in GPIO deep sleep. So in principal the ESP32 is the right choice but I believe you, that some the boards I have chosen are not the most energy efficient ones without tweaking. I have a couple of other ESP32 boards, maby I have to combine them with my RFM95 modules I also own to get down in the uA range.
Here is the 5 to 6 uA measured ESP32 board
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NDq6hC9KJo@heinzv You haven't really said what your requirements are. I'd say give it a try. It's not an expensive experiment. Then you'll know for sure. For all I know, maybe it's just what you're looking for. If not, there's always more and bigger batteries to make it last longer.
As to alternatives, probably using a 3.3v Arduino Pro Mini, or equivalent, is what most would recommend. Here's one I posted:
https://www.openhardware.io/view/395/LoRa-Ra-01-ATmega328P-Node
If you go looking, I'm sure you can find lots of similar things. For instance: https://www.openhardware.io/view/534/Extremely-Simple-Arduino-Pro-Mini-LoRa-Water-Leak-Detector -
@heinzv You haven't really said what your requirements are. I'd say give it a try. It's not an expensive experiment. Then you'll know for sure. For all I know, maybe it's just what you're looking for. If not, there's always more and bigger batteries to make it last longer.
As to alternatives, probably using a 3.3v Arduino Pro Mini, or equivalent, is what most would recommend. Here's one I posted:
https://www.openhardware.io/view/395/LoRa-Ra-01-ATmega328P-Node
If you go looking, I'm sure you can find lots of similar things. For instance: https://www.openhardware.io/view/534/Extremely-Simple-Arduino-Pro-Mini-LoRa-Water-Leak-Detector@neverdie Thanks for the good hints. I also have a couple of 3.3v/8Mhz Arduino or a comparable ATmega32u4 pro mini boards, but not found the Lora RA-01 modules with 868MHz / SX1276 only the SX1278 with 433MHz, in Europe 868MHz is the better choice and my ESP32 have SX1276 with 868MHz. However I have 10 RFM95 modules with 868MHz I could use but I need to connect then two devices at the SPI bus, the RFM95 and the E-Paper.
In addition, I also have 3,7 LiPo with 2200mAh batteries but they have 4,2V charged, so I would need a voltage regulator + charger or othe other batteries below 3,6V charged.
I see, you making very nice HW projects and boards. I'm impressed :-)BTW: as you're also a HW expert, I have purchased a couple of the SP1 smart sockets from Gosund, Homecube and Coosa, they all have the same HW with an ESP8266EX and 1MB flash. They all need the Smart Life App and use a Chionese Cloud. I want to flash them with either Mysensors, Tasmota, ESPEasy or whatever, but then I loose the energy monitor.
They have a chip which I don't find thus what driver/code should be used? I have posted a support request already in two projects (here and at Tasmota) not sure if anybody is smart enough to find a solution. Above I have posted two pictures of the inside of the Plug. Any idea what we can do?
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@neverdie Thanks for the good hints. I also have a couple of 3.3v/8Mhz Arduino or a comparable ATmega32u4 pro mini boards, but not found the Lora RA-01 modules with 868MHz / SX1276 only the SX1278 with 433MHz, in Europe 868MHz is the better choice and my ESP32 have SX1276 with 868MHz. However I have 10 RFM95 modules with 868MHz I could use but I need to connect then two devices at the SPI bus, the RFM95 and the E-Paper.
In addition, I also have 3,7 LiPo with 2200mAh batteries but they have 4,2V charged, so I would need a voltage regulator + charger or othe other batteries below 3,6V charged.
I see, you making very nice HW projects and boards. I'm impressed :-)BTW: as you're also a HW expert, I have purchased a couple of the SP1 smart sockets from Gosund, Homecube and Coosa, they all have the same HW with an ESP8266EX and 1MB flash. They all need the Smart Life App and use a Chionese Cloud. I want to flash them with either Mysensors, Tasmota, ESPEasy or whatever, but then I loose the energy monitor.
They have a chip which I don't find thus what driver/code should be used? I have posted a support request already in two projects (here and at Tasmota) not sure if anybody is smart enough to find a solution. Above I have posted two pictures of the inside of the Plug. Any idea what we can do?@heinzv Sorry, but I don't understand your question.
Also, generally speaking, multimeters alone are the wrong tool for measuring microamp currents. As Scalz already mentioned, something like a uCurrent Gold would be a better choice.
Good luck! Let us know how it goes.
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@neverdie I have not yet measured the power consumption in deep sleep, but I will certainly verify it (I have ordered a multimeter with a 0-60uA rage). I 'll let you know.
The battery powered wall mounted devices with e-paper is something I'll build. If the ESP32 Lora board is not what I expect, I need, what other choises do I have? Buying a nrf52 board (some have a battery management) with a RFM95? Do you think that is the better choice? The nrf52 board are not cheap.
What combination would you recommend?
I also have STM32F1 with 128kb flash, but the look also not so convient to me.
I have gone through many articles and watched many videos and did not get the impression, that the ESP32 is wrong for efficient battery usage.
Here is one video with an ESP32 board a guy measured with a Fluke 5.x uA in RTC timer deep sleep and 6.5uA in GPIO deep sleep. So in principal the ESP32 is the right choice but I believe you, that some the boards I have chosen are not the most energy efficient ones without tweaking. I have a couple of other ESP32 boards, maby I have to combine them with my RFM95 modules I also own to get down in the uA range.
Here is the 5 to 6 uA measured ESP32 board
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NDq6hC9KJoBuying a nrf52 board (some have a battery management) with a RFM95? Do you think that is the better choice? The nrf52 board are not cheap.
Not sure if you noticed, but nrf5x comes with a nrf24-compatible radio on the same chip. So it is similar to the esp32+lora board you linked to.
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Buying a nrf52 board (some have a battery management) with a RFM95? Do you think that is the better choice? The nrf52 board are not cheap.
Not sure if you noticed, but nrf5x comes with a nrf24-compatible radio on the same chip. So it is similar to the esp32+lora board you linked to.
@mfalkvidd said in ESP32 Support to enable the powerful ESP32 + RFM95/Lora + LiPo battery boards:
nrf24
thanks for all your hints. I'll first continue with my ESP32 Lora board and see how far I come. I also have so many other boards like ESP8266, 8285, 328, 32u4, STM32L1 and a lot of RF modules (RFM69, 95 and CC1101) which I'm testing in parallel. Since I have now an intermediate repository with ESP32 + RFM95 support from tekka007, I continue first on that path and let you know if it fits or not and what results I have.
I hope though, that the tekka007 version makes it in the master branch (maybe in the 3.0 version). -
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Andreas Spiess just yesterday uploaded a very comprehensive comparison between the different LiPo powered ESP32 modules people on this thread might be interested about: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-769_YIeGmI
He has also posted a lot of other excellent ESP32 and LoRa videos. i highly recommend to check them out!
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I watched it too and the result is that as usual the barebone solution is the most battery friendly :D
@gohan at least my saying is confirmed, that the ESP32 is well suited for battery usage (has the ULP co-processor) and the ESP8266 is not better, rather worse. And you get many ESP32 boards with battery management. Of course, what all the analysis show is that if board design is bad, the battery consumption can be bad. But that would be the same for ESP8266.
Conclusion: ESP32 support and also RFM95 support makes sense :-) -
A relevant question that you won't want to gloss over is how long does it take the ESP32 to re-acquire access to the WiFi router after it wakes from deep sleep? Potentially, a lot of power could vanish into that. More than anything, I think that may be why it so far hasn't proven as popular for battery operation.
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A relevant question that you won't want to gloss over is how long does it take the ESP32 to re-acquire access to the WiFi router after it wakes from deep sleep? Potentially, a lot of power could vanish into that. More than anything, I think that may be why it so far hasn't proven as popular for battery operation.
@neverdie Since the ESP32 (with the right board setup) and LoRA are both optimized for low power and battery saving and a sensor node would only wake-up max. every 60 secs and just reports temp, humidity, pressure and battery level, it shuld be fine.
That is only a small message and LoRA optimized for longer range and low power.
ESP8266 and RFM69 is supported and not better (I guess even worse). The important thing ist that the sensor nodes do not send date via WiFI AP, that consumes time to connect and thus energy. I don't use ESP32 WiFi on sensor nodes just the ULP deep sleep the RFM96 (could also use RFM69 non LoRa) but then I need to solder a lot.
But there is already a PR with supports both and my RFM96 gateway works, so I'm satisfied :-) -
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I have now tried to build an indoor sensor with Homematic protocol and an e-paper display using Pa-Pa's AsksinPP and GxEPD libs. Now I'm far beyond the Atmegas328p Flash and RAM and close to the limit of an STM32 maple. So I will go for the little ESP32 barebone boards and a RFM69 (LoRa or ESPNow). I'm very happy, that ESP32 and RFM95 are now supported thanks to tekka!
