Forget WiFi! This Wireless Method is WAY Better
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Date: 2024-05-06
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Comments and reviews: 20
rodo19724
Hi! Greetings from Argentina! I have been searching and asking, but nobody gives the answers I need. I bought two cheap handys, Baofeng BF-999S, and I would like to transmit data from one arduino to another arduino, using the power of the handy transmiter, because I bought two Rf Nrf 24l01, it only transmits up to 50 meters, but with rattlegram and the two handys, I send txt messages up to 500 mts. thats the distance I need, but instead of using two smartphones and two arduino, I would like to use the two handys that are more powerful and I can send data from arduino and the serial com from my pc to the other arduino connected to the other handy with a little oled screen to see the data. No one seems to have an idea of that, despites they do other things with ham radios. This handy is the cheapest, doesnt have a numeric keyboard, only 2. 5 and 3. 5 jack and plug and a mono earspk. I have been watching some schematics I can PTT shorting the two sleeves, but the Rx and Tx rings only give noise. Can you give a hand with this schematics and a simple code, Thank you much! Modulator and demodulator boards are not available in my country. Or with the Rf Nrf 24l01 how to build an amplifier to extend at least 20 times the actual range of the two Rf Nrf 24l01 Thank you very much!
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Hi! Greetings from Argentina! I have been searching and asking, but nobody gives the answers I need. I bought two cheap handys, Baofeng BF-999S, and I would like to transmit data from one arduino to another arduino, using the power of the handy transmiter, because I bought two Rf Nrf 24l01, it only transmits up to 50 meters, but with rattlegram and the two handys, I send txt messages up to 500 mts. thats the distance I need, but instead of using two smartphones and two arduino, I would like to use the two handys that are more powerful and I can send data from arduino and the serial com from my pc to the other arduino connected to the other handy with a little oled screen to see the data. No one seems to have an idea of that, despites they do other things with ham radios. This handy is the cheapest, doesnt have a numeric keyboard, only 2. 5 and 3. 5 jack and plug and a mono earspk. I have been watching some schematics I can PTT shorting the two sleeves, but the Rx and Tx rings only give noise. Can you give a hand with this schematics and a simple code, Thank you much! Modulator and demodulator boards are not available in my country. Or with the Rf Nrf 24l01 how to build an amplifier to extend at least 20 times the actual range of the two Rf Nrf 24l01 Thank you very much!
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Cuplex1
Why do you need such low latency I have several ESP Devices controlling lights in my apartment. While also transmitting sensor data.
I have also created a small remote control station based on a Node MCU 12E microcontroller. An OLED screen shows the time and date, synchronized to an NTP Server, temp humidity etc.
But the main functionality is to be able to control lights. On/Off and intensity. Connected over Wi-Fi. So they exist besides my Philips Hue lights.
That's why It's so continent to be able to control several different light sources perfectly with just one button each. That's the magic of programming and timings.
Which turns each single button into a tri state input device in Home Assistant. Single, double and long press. The delay is never over 25 milliseconds. And every action feels instantaneously.
The command loop for determining a single or a double click is just 100 ms apart.
I have more powerful ESP 32 dual-core Wroom microcontrollers that are able to work at a far higher frequency over the i2c bus, set to 800 kHz. Which matters when several different devices are connected to the same i2c port.
I use WIFI-OTP to program them remotely, and the delay is again is below perception level.
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Why do you need such low latency I have several ESP Devices controlling lights in my apartment. While also transmitting sensor data.
I have also created a small remote control station based on a Node MCU 12E microcontroller. An OLED screen shows the time and date, synchronized to an NTP Server, temp humidity etc.
But the main functionality is to be able to control lights. On/Off and intensity. Connected over Wi-Fi. So they exist besides my Philips Hue lights.
That's why It's so continent to be able to control several different light sources perfectly with just one button each. That's the magic of programming and timings.
Which turns each single button into a tri state input device in Home Assistant. Single, double and long press. The delay is never over 25 milliseconds. And every action feels instantaneously.
The command loop for determining a single or a double click is just 100 ms apart.
I have more powerful ESP 32 dual-core Wroom microcontrollers that are able to work at a far higher frequency over the i2c bus, set to 800 kHz. Which matters when several different devices are connected to the same i2c port.
I use WIFI-OTP to program them remotely, and the delay is again is below perception level.
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greatscott
The quality of your audio amp circuit also has a major effect on the results of the audio you get as well. The cartridge mic's quality, the amp circuit you used for the mic (the mic amp used here looks to be class A, so high fidelity, but also high power consumption, and the amp circuit used for the speaker (this looks to be some sort of IC amp, so I am not sure if this is creating any of the distortion or not.
I bring this up because the audio didn't sound like it was being distorted from the ADC and DAC all that badly. There was some packet loss in there, but it sounded more like an audio amp circuit wasn't all that great in the circuit, but I could be wrong. One of the biggest mistakes I have seen done is using op-amps for audio amplification. This should never be done since op-amps don't have even amplification across all frequencies, so they sill distort audio signals. They are for amplifying signals where the fidelity doesn't matter as much, like a simple hi-lo signal from a sensor that is really far away or it doesn't put out that much voltage between the two states.
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The quality of your audio amp circuit also has a major effect on the results of the audio you get as well. The cartridge mic's quality, the amp circuit you used for the mic (the mic amp used here looks to be class A, so high fidelity, but also high power consumption, and the amp circuit used for the speaker (this looks to be some sort of IC amp, so I am not sure if this is creating any of the distortion or not.
I bring this up because the audio didn't sound like it was being distorted from the ADC and DAC all that badly. There was some packet loss in there, but it sounded more like an audio amp circuit wasn't all that great in the circuit, but I could be wrong. One of the biggest mistakes I have seen done is using op-amps for audio amplification. This should never be done since op-amps don't have even amplification across all frequencies, so they sill distort audio signals. They are for amplifying signals where the fidelity doesn't matter as much, like a simple hi-lo signal from a sensor that is really far away or it doesn't put out that much voltage between the two states.
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PabloB740
I can see your custom made design do not have the esp32 in the corner so i thought you might not be aware of that using a properly placed footprint, following espressif antenna placement recommendations for active esp32 modules (mostly, put the antena in a corner without pcb behind) will give you MUCH LONGER range.
The devkits you are using as examples in this video have pcb (probably with ground) routed under the antenna and they have terrible wireless performance, you can easily get >15m for wifi out of a good design. You can also see the change in antenna placement in newer espressif devkits like the S3 ones, they all have the antenna outside the pcb. it can even work quite well from inside a closed metal enclosure.
Thnx for the video, i didn't know about ESP-NOW, i will be using it from now on!
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I can see your custom made design do not have the esp32 in the corner so i thought you might not be aware of that using a properly placed footprint, following espressif antenna placement recommendations for active esp32 modules (mostly, put the antena in a corner without pcb behind) will give you MUCH LONGER range.
The devkits you are using as examples in this video have pcb (probably with ground) routed under the antenna and they have terrible wireless performance, you can easily get >15m for wifi out of a good design. You can also see the change in antenna placement in newer espressif devkits like the S3 ones, they all have the antenna outside the pcb. it can even work quite well from inside a closed metal enclosure.
Thnx for the video, i didn't know about ESP-NOW, i will be using it from now on!
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PSW0
it is kinda a bad agument to say that it has longer range then wifi. one is ptp and wifi is more complicatet but the smipels chase is device-WifiAP-device in open space then the max range is easy over 300m. but if you have multi wifi AP's the range goes up. between 2 the most distant point in my network there is 3Km. i woud expekt a legacy of 8 - 13 ms between 2 wifi client.
the problem with wifi is a god network cost a lot and use netcabel so most dont have it. mesh wifi is kinda bad, it adds legacy like it was someting intercontinental 20ms
from clint to router is nomal with mesh. where a wifi AP with Cabel 3-4 ms legacy from clint to router is nomal
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it is kinda a bad agument to say that it has longer range then wifi. one is ptp and wifi is more complicatet but the smipels chase is device-WifiAP-device in open space then the max range is easy over 300m. but if you have multi wifi AP's the range goes up. between 2 the most distant point in my network there is 3Km. i woud expekt a legacy of 8 - 13 ms between 2 wifi client.
the problem with wifi is a god network cost a lot and use netcabel so most dont have it. mesh wifi is kinda bad, it adds legacy like it was someting intercontinental 20ms
from clint to router is nomal with mesh. where a wifi AP with Cabel 3-4 ms legacy from clint to router is nomal
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CapnBry
ESP-NOW really shines when it comes to low power designs, since it is connectionless. I converted a sensor over from wifi to espnow and it went from draining an 18650 in under a month to lasting over 6 months at which point I just ended the test. It should be noted that ESP-NOW does have a built in retry mechanism when used in unicast mode (which is when you tell it the destination MAC, i. e. not FF-FF-FF-FF-FF-FF. It will retry 11 total times at 11, 5, then 1Mbit, or even slower if long range is activated. This is important when you're going for a low latency connection like voice, that the total send time can be 0. 1ms or 3-4ms for one packet!
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ESP-NOW really shines when it comes to low power designs, since it is connectionless. I converted a sensor over from wifi to espnow and it went from draining an 18650 in under a month to lasting over 6 months at which point I just ended the test. It should be noted that ESP-NOW does have a built in retry mechanism when used in unicast mode (which is when you tell it the destination MAC, i. e. not FF-FF-FF-FF-FF-FF. It will retry 11 total times at 11, 5, then 1Mbit, or even slower if long range is activated. This is important when you're going for a low latency connection like voice, that the total send time can be 0. 1ms or 3-4ms for one packet!
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claudiomoles
GreatScott, I use ESPNOW with ESP8266 for a ling time. I transmit data structures with vary sensors information, including grid voltage and current from my solar panels. It is much better than dealing with tcp/ip, sockets, etc that take forever in handshaking and speed. ESPNOW us fast and you just plug the slave or master and in a blink they are already sending data back and forth. You can even encrypt your data for security. I rhink it is much easier to use than WEB WIFI.
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GreatScott, I use ESPNOW with ESP8266 for a ling time. I transmit data structures with vary sensors information, including grid voltage and current from my solar panels. It is much better than dealing with tcp/ip, sockets, etc that take forever in handshaking and speed. ESPNOW us fast and you just plug the slave or master and in a blink they are already sending data back and forth. You can even encrypt your data for security. I rhink it is much easier to use than WEB WIFI.
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muhammadahsan7841
Almost 3 years ago i have created a complete system based on ESP Now as a part of my FYP. It includes ESP now gateway, multiple sensors and actuator nodes, complete custom backend and mobile app for controlling everything. I made some modification to esp now based systems to increase it reliability as esp now is based on udp. Also everything is dynamic thanks to the esp now gateway i have designed. ESP now is very great low power protocol only if we use it properly.
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Almost 3 years ago i have created a complete system based on ESP Now as a part of my FYP. It includes ESP now gateway, multiple sensors and actuator nodes, complete custom backend and mobile app for controlling everything. I made some modification to esp now based systems to increase it reliability as esp now is based on udp. Also everything is dynamic thanks to the esp now gateway i have designed. ESP now is very great low power protocol only if we use it properly.
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hxtec32
I made a little 150g combat robot using an ESP32-C3-MINI-1, and, can confirm, ESP-NOW is indeed awesome. I put the robot in my house, then walked outside, past my gate, and it still worked (probably 30m or so. Past that it stopped receiving signals though, probably because my transmitter ESP32 was very small and had a chip antenna which was probably low gain (not to mention the antenna had no ground clearance or anything. Thanks for your awesome videos GreatScott!
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I made a little 150g combat robot using an ESP32-C3-MINI-1, and, can confirm, ESP-NOW is indeed awesome. I put the robot in my house, then walked outside, past my gate, and it still worked (probably 30m or so. Past that it stopped receiving signals though, probably because my transmitter ESP32 was very small and had a chip antenna which was probably low gain (not to mention the antenna had no ground clearance or anything. Thanks for your awesome videos GreatScott!
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speendo
Thank you for this informative video. This might be very handy for me in a future project.
Apart from that, I have an offtopic (but I think still important) remark: The terminology Master and Slave is criticized for being discriminative language. It can easily be avoided by using replacements like Host (or Controler) and Client.
The debate about this terminology can be looked up on the wikipedia page Masterslave (technology.
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Thank you for this informative video. This might be very handy for me in a future project.
Apart from that, I have an offtopic (but I think still important) remark: The terminology Master and Slave is criticized for being discriminative language. It can easily be avoided by using replacements like Host (or Controler) and Client.
The debate about this terminology can be looked up on the wikipedia page Masterslave (technology.
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ericseidel4940
This one os very interresting for me. You don't talk about the range and ways to improve it. Is it the same than Wifi Do you think I can transmit Images via ESP NOW I don't mean movies, but one image par few second would be enough for me. I want to build a chicken keeper, where I can check what is happening at their place with a camera, as well as open and close the door, switch on the light and the automatic feeder.
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This one os very interresting for me. You don't talk about the range and ways to improve it. Is it the same than Wifi Do you think I can transmit Images via ESP NOW I don't mean movies, but one image par few second would be enough for me. I want to build a chicken keeper, where I can check what is happening at their place with a camera, as well as open and close the door, switch on the light and the automatic feeder.
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McNificoTube
I've been wanting to use ESP-now from the start in one of my IoT projects, but haven't gotten around to it yet. While all my IoT boards come with GSM capabilities, WiFi is the more popular choice. However, when WiFi isn't available, using multiple IoT GSM connections in one location gets expensive. So, I'm thinking of using one IoT device as an ESP-now internet gateway for the others. Time to put this idea to the test!
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I've been wanting to use ESP-now from the start in one of my IoT projects, but haven't gotten around to it yet. While all my IoT boards come with GSM capabilities, WiFi is the more popular choice. However, when WiFi isn't available, using multiple IoT GSM connections in one location gets expensive. So, I'm thinking of using one IoT device as an ESP-now internet gateway for the others. Time to put this idea to the test!
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sorinl8467
Good video. But your comparison may generate some confusion. 433Mhz it's a frequency but Lora it's a modulation protocol. 433Mzh have been used for quite long time before Lora but here in EU Lora transmissions use same frequency plus 868Mhz. Living in Germany you must know that this country have a strong Meshcom community. For those who don't know Meshcom it's a Meshstatic like project that use only 433Mhz frequency.
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Good video. But your comparison may generate some confusion. 433Mhz it's a frequency but Lora it's a modulation protocol. 433Mzh have been used for quite long time before Lora but here in EU Lora transmissions use same frequency plus 868Mhz. Living in Germany you must know that this country have a strong Meshcom community. For those who don't know Meshcom it's a Meshstatic like project that use only 433Mhz frequency.
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peircedan
WiFi is the physical layer of the protocol stack. esp now is above that at the transport layer. You are using both of these not one or the other. This is clearly shown in the ESPRESSIF documentation for esp now! Look at the esp now model. What you are not using with ESP now is TCP/IP. By not using TCP/IP overhead is reduced. Look at 5: 38 and you will see you are including libraries for both esp now and WiFi!
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WiFi is the physical layer of the protocol stack. esp now is above that at the transport layer. You are using both of these not one or the other. This is clearly shown in the ESPRESSIF documentation for esp now! Look at the esp now model. What you are not using with ESP now is TCP/IP. By not using TCP/IP overhead is reduced. Look at 5: 38 and you will see you are including libraries for both esp now and WiFi!
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gyulamolnar8971
I don't know. if I understood this was 10m. I think maybe 50-100m we can speak together without anything, and better, and I think an FM or AM analog device also better in 10m. But the 8bit in PCM I think, so the question that can we upload a software converter to opus/mp3/flac/AAC/AC3 Because 8 bit 40kHz PCM is 320kbps if I calculate is good. What maybe enough for fine quality sound.
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I don't know. if I understood this was 10m. I think maybe 50-100m we can speak together without anything, and better, and I think an FM or AM analog device also better in 10m. But the 8bit in PCM I think, so the question that can we upload a software converter to opus/mp3/flac/AAC/AC3 Because 8 bit 40kHz PCM is 320kbps if I calculate is good. What maybe enough for fine quality sound.
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PeetHobby
The NRF24L01 works almost the same as ESP-NOW in BLE mode, which is what you used in this project. ESP32 BLE and NRF24L01 can communicate with each other. NRF24L01 was already in use before the BLE standard was certified in 2009, and products that used the BLE standard came much later. I still love the NRF24 series, it's cheap and easy to use.
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The NRF24L01 works almost the same as ESP-NOW in BLE mode, which is what you used in this project. ESP32 BLE and NRF24L01 can communicate with each other. NRF24L01 was already in use before the BLE standard was certified in 2009, and products that used the BLE standard came much later. I still love the NRF24 series, it's cheap and easy to use.
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greatscott
WiFi interference of ESP32 is a big problem. I faced it for the first time when I was designing a super stable and noise-free power supply for some specific project of our lab. The power supply output voltage was being controlled by the ESP. The WiFi interference was adding noise to the output voltage. Later we switched to STM32.
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WiFi interference of ESP32 is a big problem. I faced it for the first time when I was designing a super stable and noise-free power supply for some specific project of our lab. The power supply output voltage was being controlled by the ESP. The WiFi interference was adding noise to the output voltage. Later we switched to STM32.
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ocdtechtalk
Scott - if you are interested to find out why a Kickstarter product (Mag Fast) doesn't work I will send you my products. I ordered the Kickstarter products in 2019. I just received them in 2024 and none of them work. If you are interested I'll send them to you for a video teardown. Love your videos. Thank you.
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Scott - if you are interested to find out why a Kickstarter product (Mag Fast) doesn't work I will send you my products. I ordered the Kickstarter products in 2019. I just received them in 2024 and none of them work. If you are interested I'll send them to you for a video teardown. Love your videos. Thank you.
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greatscott
I just wish they would use IPv6, sick of having to keep creating more subnets and VLAN's for IOT devices, anyone know is espnow is working with esphome yet I know last year they were saying would not do it because of issues with HA, having multihop would stop me having to add more mikrotic repeaters around
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I just wish they would use IPv6, sick of having to keep creating more subnets and VLAN's for IOT devices, anyone know is espnow is working with esphome yet I know last year they were saying would not do it because of issues with HA, having multihop would stop me having to add more mikrotic repeaters around
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CaseyConnor
As others have said: the esp32 can function in AP wireless mode, so you can connect to it without a router involved. Additionally many (most all) can function in STA and AP mode simultaneously, so they can connect to a wifi net at the same time something is connecting to them. I do this and it works great.
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As others have said: the esp32 can function in AP wireless mode, so you can connect to it without a router involved. Additionally many (most all) can function in STA and AP mode simultaneously, so they can connect to a wifi net at the same time something is connecting to them. I do this and it works great.
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