A boss in his 40s once told me that he was very envious of me who do technology. He also likes to study and feels that he has a sense of accomplishment in making products.
Men are born children, they all like to play and study.
I have been developing single-chip microcomputers for 11 years, and I feel that the learning process of technology is boring.
It's not as interesting as it seems to the layman, especially before the Internet of Things is mature, most electronic products are stand-alone versions.
Since the wifi module esp8266 comes out, it can be made into a network version, and there are more additional functions that can be done.
In fact, the early esp8266 was not very stable. It is said that it was a problem with the sdk. I was afraid to use it in products. I used Welding Maple and Qingke a lot.
After stabilization, many products also use esp8266, because the price is too good.
Esp8266 is mainly for IoT applications, such as wearable devices, smart home, smart security, etc. There are too many.
Esp8266 is equivalent to your home "router", helping you connect your computer and mobile phone to the Internet. As for what to do online, there is a lot of room for imagination.
Recently, our Boundless MCU team also used esp8266 to make an IoT security gateway project, directly above the picture.
Please ignore all kinds of flying wires, the first hardware version, if there are no accidents, there will definitely be some accidents.
Compared with those interesting projects done by many netizens, ours is rather boring, without any cool-looking interface and functions.
The actual product development is like this, making complex things simple and making fancy things practical. Everything is based on product stability and solving user pain points.
The function of Esp8266 is data transparent transmission. For example, the single-chip microcomputer reports the endpoint data to the server, and the server sends the endpoint data to the single-chip microcomputer.
From the esp8266 to the server, we use the MQTT protocol, and the Esp8266 to the microcontroller can communicate directly through the serial port.
The protocols specific to product functions are all developed by ourselves, which can be compatible with most different types of products. Product functions can be customized by adding/deleting endpoints.
The backend of the server is also developed by ourselves. At present, the core functions have been adjusted, including device binding, custom endpoints, firmware upgrades, user management and other functions.
In addition to the esp8266, Quectel’s 4G module is also used in the WAN to ensure that it can switch to 4G when the wifi at home is disconnected.
The 4G module itself can also make calls and send messages. When the security gateway detects an alarm, even if there is a delay in network transmission, it can ensure that the user can be notified quickly to the greatest extent. These are pitfalls stepped on from the actual product.
The local area network uses lora communication, and uses our own developed lora module for data transparent transmission.
The sensor is networked with lora and the gateway to detect whether there is any abnormality in the surrounding environment.
There are quite a lot of overall functions, and this is just the tip of the iceberg, which can be regarded as a high-level project.
Compared with some interesting DIY projects of various ready-made modules, we complete them according to the requirements and standards of actual products, with higher integration and lower cost.
Many Wuji MCU programming students want to learn OTA firmware upgrade, and we will meet everyone's needs in this project.
In addition, it also teaches everyone to get through the entire process of the hardware layer and the back end. If you have this ability, the most direct benefit to you is that the salary will be higher than that of ordinary single-chip microcomputer engineers.
Finally, let’s make a conclusion. After testing our project, we found that the esp8266 is not as stable as the Hanfeng module. The main reason is that the communication is not so smooth, and the data frame interval is relatively long, otherwise it will be busy at every turn, resulting in slow OTA upgrade speed.
I don't know if it is a problem with the official firmware, or if we haven't optimized it well, we will study it later.
At the end of the Easter Egg time , many friends recently asked me for some MCU learning materials. Then, based on my ten years of experience in the industry, I stayed up all night in my spare time and carefully compiled a "MCU Introduction to Advanced Tutorial + Toolkit" , all free of charge . Share it with everyone! ! !
If you want to private message me for the above "SCM entry to advanced tutorial + toolkit", reply 087 and give priority to it.
