WiFi connections with the nrf52 (breakout/pixljs/puck/etc)

[espruino-discuss3]

Posted at 2023-06-08 by parasquid

I've been doing a project with the pi pico w (there's a local competition that requires us to use some of their add-on products) and as much as I wanted to use Espruino, it's not yet available on the pi pico/w and so I'm unfortunately stuck with circuitpython.

It's been a struggle, as the async and realtime stuff is a lot harder to work with in python and I really miss the natural asyncness of Espruino.

After the competition I'd like to redo the whole thing in the pixl.js but the only missing component would be WiFi access (I need to be able to reach out to a sonoff relay to turn it on or off).

I know there's the esp-at driver, but I've found it a bit finicky and the esp8266 can sometimes be very flaky. There's the bluetooth-wifi bridge through mqt, but I'd like to minimize the equipment dependencies.

I saw there's a way to use an esp32 via spi (I think it's called the nina firmware) but I can't seem to find any docs about it here in the forums or in the official docs).

Has anyone tried to use wifi with the nrf52 chips and how did you go about it?

[espruino-discuss3]

Posted at 2023-06-09 by @gfwilliams

Honestly, I think UART is still the way to go - I don't really see any reason why SPI should be substantially better, and I'm unaware of any SPI WiFi driver for Espruino that'd work with ESP32. I imagine doing one would be a decent amount of work.

There's some info on using an ESP8266 shield with Pixl.js at http://www.espruino.com/arduino-esp8266 - I've actually been using a Pixl.js Multicolor with an ESP8266 attached to monitor my solar panels here (using MQTT) and it's been working great for me for weeks non-stop.

But if you did want to use ESP32 then the same AT-command library for Espruino should work with it - you'd just have to write the ESP32 AT-command firmware to the ESP32.

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Posted at 2023-06-10 by parasquid

Gotcha, it could just be my esp8266 modules being flaky.

Thanks for the esp32-at hint, that might be something i'd like to try :)

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Posted at 2023-06-12 by @gfwilliams

Yes - it's definitely worth updating the ESP8266 firmware. I think they've made a lot of improvements to it since the original release