yeah, I too only heard about it recently... then again I'm clueless on electronics, I only recently started looking into them. ESP-NOW seems like a very simple peer to peer protocol, with emphasis on simplicity rather than interoperation everywhere like the TCP. There are good reasons TCP/IP is designed the way it is, but there're also good reasons to use something simple, fast, low-latency and nonstandard on certain applications. First time I hear of Lora as well, I suppose there's applications for this too. I suppose electronics people can easily build a dead simple transmitter/receiver and if they can also code, they can write their own simple protocols if they have specific needs. ESP-NOW seems like a good start for us newbies to play with and make stuff do stuff quickly.
It's just not Sunday morning without Andreas and Great Scott! The videos are so well thought out and professional, I very much appreciate the time they put into them.
I'm not sold. The advantage of LoRa is it can transmit over very large distances, as famously proven by yourself in your incredible video where you transmit from France! ESP now, being based on WiFi radio will not have anything like the range. These are apples and oranges. It might be good, say, around the house for sensors; but for SCADA and telemetry (where I'm developing LoRa products) this isn't appropriate. It is very interesting though. These little devices are simply incredible! Thanks for the video Andreas. Warmest regards from Aberdeen, Scotland.
I think, your comment is a summary of my video. My last sentence was: "So, each of the three technologies has its perfect fit, but also areas where I would not use it. Maybe this video helped you a little to do the right decisions in your projects."
Using the examples, and following your instructions, I linked two ESP32 Dev boards together and communicated successfully via ESPNOW. You are one of the best teachers on the internet. Glad I subscribed long ago. Now I have to actually send some data packets of my data. Swiss accents are very nice.
I’m now asking myself why I have not watched all your videos. I’m grateful that you have taken so much effort into micro controller technology. I will now research about ESP32 now.
I finally ordered a couple Esp32's after years of holding out. Your videos are bringing me up to speed on them and their features and quirks as quick as humanly possible. Thanks for saving me so much time!
Thank you very much for pointing me in the direction of ESP-now. This is the step I needed to make battery sensors based on esp32/esp8266. I did wrote a esp-now to mqtt gateway on one esp8266 without problems... First init WiFi and then init espnow. I have them both active without any problems. BTW, I like your video's very much. Keep them comming.
I have tried it. It works for some time, with a round trip time measured on the sensor ( master ) node that is twice as large ( 17 vs. 4 ms). The sensor node does never receive an ack in the send callback function an error (1) is returned. Then, after about 8 messages, the WiFi node does not receive any moremessages. Of course, I may be doing something wrong. See github.com/gitpeut/try-espnow. To get this working I'll go for DualESP.
This is most excellent. I'm working on putting together a home automation system using ESP8266's for various sensors and switch supervision. One of the issues I was running into was how to toggle several different lamps on and off. I really don't want to be tied to a smartphone, PC, or some sort of master control panel to toggle the reading lamp in my den on and off. One idea was battery powered "remote" but constant connection to wifi would kill the batteries in no time. With your ESPNow solution, I could setup an 8266 as a master/gateway to wifi and have several battery powered push buttons throughout the house.
Sehr gut gemachtes Video. Ich habe mir direkt einen Außentemperatur Sensor mit dem ESP-07 (mit Antenne) und einer Empfangsstation mit dem ESP12e mit Adafruit Display nachgebaut. Das ganze mit den Programmen von HarringayMakerspace. Funktioniert tadellos. Immer wieder erstaunlich was man mit den ESP8266 Modulen anfangen kann. Weiter so !
Dear Andreas, as always your contribution is valued and highly valuable. In this case however I must comment on the continued usage of historical and outmoded references to "master" and "slave" as originating from a supremacist vocabulary. Recent similar discussions have remarked upon alternative functional terms (dependant upon context) as: "control vs remote vs return" & "origin vs target vs response" with: a common term of "message" referring to the data from the control or originating device & data sent back to the origin or control device being referred to as the "return or response" This not an exclusive list but is a starting point for memorable replacements with CRR & OTR mnemonics for non exclusive examples of "Comfort Requires Relaxation" and "Open Truths Refresh" Good Job Andreas!
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangular_trade. I agree your national history and identity stand as exemplary and are iconic representations of neutrality. I do not think you would be drawn into any discussion to logically prove your outlook. However even Switzerland stands upon the shoulders of vast economic inputs from 400 years of lucrative triangular trade by Western European countries including the UK who are trying to avoid responsibility for the fallout from arms trading to the Middle East by exiting the European Union. Our histories are all based upon supremacist exploitation of an isolated peaceful continent and it's populations. Please reconsider your use of historically tainted and conceptually overloaded terms. Although you may say they are in use within an industry characterised by white males, the need to recognise seed concepts as a danger in the naive mind that has not yet grasped the functional concept of balance to establish self organizing neutrality. Such personalities are readily targeted by unbalanced supremacist personalities for their own gain. The symbols of national socialism circa 1930 Germany have been outlawed for similar good reason. Please show respect for the millions of personal tragedies created by the paired concepts of "slave" and "master". Non but ourselves can free our minds, but we can help each other. Thank you, Andreas
Very interesting video and the ESP-Now concept (which I hadn't heard of) will be invaluable for my battery driven ESP8266/ESP32 devices.You could say it will transform it! Many thanks to taking the time to make this video and Seasons Greetings from the UK to you and your family
The months december and january are designated for home automation and electronics, these were well timed videos. Thanks for pointing us to node-red and to this possibility!
Thank you once again. Very interesting and gets me thinking of all the possibilities. I really appreciate the time and effort you put into your videos. Thank you.
Thanks for all great videos! I experimented with the ESP8266 and ESPNow and WiFi and found that the WiFi channel selectivity of these is extremly limited. When signals are strong, the STA will easily connect to an AP on a neighboring channel and ESPNow transmissions sometimes get ack-ed on channels that are even further away. When a unit receives an ESP message that does not mean that the transmitter sent that on the same WiFi channel. That makes it hard to make an automatic channel selection by scanning for response (that and the issue that channel is not easy to control in STA mode). Obviously it gets better with more distance but the crosstalk easily reaches 10 meters or more. It also means that distance performance and your measurements probably get influenced by nearby transmissions. A strong signal from a nearbby transmitter even when on a different channel may have a large impact. What you did is a real life situation so it is a good indication of what can be expected, but it makes it probably not really reproducible, it is more an indication of what is to be expected. I wish RSSI was avaialble for ESPNow receptions and ack, that would help a lot. Now I get responses on multiple channels and have resorted to picking the center one where there is response. I haven't tried with a ESP32.
Thank you Andreas for your sharing your work to the community! It's exciting to think of the applications that can be made possible through the amazing ESP8266 chip as well as LoRa.
I had heard but forgotten about this, thanks again Andreas! I went directly to Ali Ex to buy memory for my box of ESP01dev boards. This should enable OTA, free some GPIO and make for some super low power 'things' about the house. I see a commercial app too, many thanks again!
Great Video! I have been toying with having several sensors around the house but up to now I haven't seen a good way to handle it. I didn't want to get into LoRa, moe unique boards and new things to learn. I also am moving everything over to the ESP32 so this all fits for me. Thanks again.
Awesome video! Here's a project idea: many esp8266 devices connected via esp-now to a esp8266 master that has a serial connection to a raspberry pi. All messages from the esp-now nodes go through this serial connection to node red for automation tasks. That would mean you could skip mqtt completely if you only need esp-now nodes. Could be a unique network style.
This is definitely a better idea than the one I used if you have many sensors. I found a plan to add another ESP for MQTT. But your proposal is simpler. And if you use a Pi zero, also not too expensive.
I was thinking, there's one disadvantage with ESP-Now: you're relying on an ESP module to do all the receiving of signals. They usually have PCB antennas, except for the ESP-07, so range will probably not be as good as with a router. And with routers you can also have multiple routers serving the same WiFi network for really big spaces. Could be problematic when trying to cover a big house or yard with sensors. Would be nice if there was an ESP8266 or ESP32 based board that is focused on getting the best range, with a properly tuned external antenna and everything. Or if there was a way to have traditional hardware listen for ESP-Now messages (it should be doable, but I doubt there is software for it).
As always a great topic, that i didnt even know existed. All the news here on this channel! i think the big fight for this wonderful chip is now battery consumption ( a part from security, because my test show that more often than not, ESP32 crashes and locks at least once in a week, as weel as QoS). One sample per hour is not really my standard. Maybe a video putting all of our choices and the pros/cons comparison. BLE, LoRa, ESP now, Wifi (and other we dont yet know about?). Battery consumption (incl wake from sleep), range, bit rate, and QoS. Great work as always Andreas!
yes and a lot of work, i know. but you have made most of the tests now. i was thinking the Big Recap of those. so maybe less work. anyway, whatever you do, i will follow! thx
Great video and very useful. Will solve a problem Ia'm having with a solar powered ESP32 project running out of power at this time of year. Was going to rebuild form scratch but using ESP-Now should hopefully solve the problem. Many thanks, keep up the good work.
Wow! Mr. Spiess this is news! That looks really interesting. Thank you for this video, going to investigate more, looks promising!I can imagine the applications like mesh sensors for farmers, for preventing fires and so on...
@@AndreasSpiess If you have time I would like to hear ideas about measuring liquid pressure like the bear pressure - simple and reliable - I need to estimate water level in a elevated storage tank and pressure seem to be a simple way but could not find a simple transducer . Any way , thank you for time .
Andreas, thank you for leading me to Anthony Elder's code resulting in a 220 mS communication period and power savings. After your video was published he has offered an even lower-power alternative in espnow-sensor-minimal.ino that describes a 40 mS period. This uses a sleep function called "ESP.deepSleepInstant". After verifying that the receiver/sender pair worked with ESP.deepsleep() I had some trouble using deepSleepInstant. It seemed to be too fast in closing down - perhaps shutting down the radio before it was done. Later I found that my last Serial.print functions were missing. Inserting a delay(10) right before deepSleepInstant seemed to fix it. BUT THE BIG NEWS is that the measured time between "send" and the end of the callback function is averaging 100 mS. Not as fast as the advertised 40 mS, but still a big savings for the battery! Very un-powerful! Hope this helps your viewers.
@@AndreasSpiess Yes, Serial.print takes time. And the same is true for other communication logic, I presume. I was thinking that the processor was thinking... do A, stop, then do B, stop, then do C. My error was thinking these ESP devices are 'single threaded' or not 'multi-tasking', however they are really multi-threaded and multi-tasking, because B can start before A has finished, I think I am experiencing. (Fortran N77 was my last class on the subject, long ago.) If the device is shut down before a transmission is completed (serial, or radio) then the transmission that was underway is not completed, right? For me that is a design discovery and an 'abstraction' convenience as it makes it easier for rookies like me. BTW: "cavalier 39" seems to be my default username when I have that gmail account open. My true identity is Craig Larson, a loyal patreon'ista. (I advise all Andreas fans to join Patreon and support the channel! Do your part!)
Thanks for again a great and inspiring video. As I read in the previous comments, it would be great to see an example were an ESP sends data to an ESP with a serial connection to a raspberry running node red.
Hi Andreas, very informative video, thank you Whilst there are plenty of examples of its use, I've spent a lot of time trying to find the ESP8266 library itself, it seems Github has many variations and function constructs and defines are different between different versions, with different people adding various arduino library wrappers. I've done quite a few 'Alexa' projects so I'm happy working with the esp8266 via WiFi, I use only the tiny ESP-01 boards, using the ESP extensions in the Arduino IDE and programmed via async serial. All work well. But I've been unable to compile anything at all for espnow! As yet I've not found anyone successfully using espnow on the ESP-01. If I could just get the simplest espnow example to compile I would be happy! Keep up the good work, the Lora videos were particularly helpful. Cheers :-) Phil
Andreass, you are my hero. I look forward to each of your episodes. Your style is flawless. Can you do some more on the" ESP Now" but with detailed range testing. This is of great interest to me. Will the range be the same for both the ESP8266 and teh ESP32?
Awesome... Just one question though... for esp-now... is it possible to have a deep slept esp32 and wake it up with espnow? What I want to achieve is, a tag that can have a small battery+buzzer+esp, can be attached to my car keys, so i can locate it with another esp :) it would be nice if the tag was in power saving mode in the interest of battery
It does not, it forms a network with devices set to the same AP, even though the AP does not have to exist, just AP name and password must be the same.
If you compare them, then you should use static IP, as you use static (MAC) address in the ESP-now. The data size for IP addresses are not a problem with the high transfer speed. ESP and LORA have much longer range. (ESP as it uses Internet, but have to have a router near).
1. Static MAC is not the same as static IP for me. My router does not like too many static IP addresses, so my limit is there. 2. I plan to do a comparison about the ranges
Static address are the same, what ever format they are in. As MAC address are the only address level for ESP-now, that is static addresses. IP dosen't actually care about MAC address, as that could be changed for the same MAC: That is different abstraction levels. With static IP, you don't need the negotiation time. Yes, that is a problem with small home routers.
Great material. He helped me a lot to understand the problem you raised in this episode. I'm currently doing a similar project in college. would you help me and recommend some internet sources or a book in which this topic is extended? I also want to encrypt my connection and get the maximum point-to-point speed possible.
You have to do the research yourself because I am not interested in security and therefore have no knowledge. Books are usually outdated before they are printed ;-)
Interesting. I'd not come across this protocol before. I have to declare an interest as somebody who worked on the 802.11 standard. The protocol appears to use the 802.11 Vendor-specific action frame, which is a way to allow it to use its 802.11 hardware, but to achieve a proprietary protocol that won't inconvenience other users of the same band (because they will discard the packets). The issue for any low-power protocol is controlling who is awake to listen. The original 802.11 protocol (circa 1997) supports ad-hoc power saving. The essence of this is that devices share an approximate clock, and wake for a window during which their intent to communicate is declared. A device seeing it is an intended recipient stays awake until it is allowed to sleep. But this was not "fine-grained" like you need. I don't see any of this complexity in ESP-now. So I have to conclude that one of the two ESP nodes (in the role of controller) has to stay awake permanently to provide the other with the ability to wake, transmit, and sleep in short order. 802.11ah added "Target Wake Interval" to coordinate a network of such devices while maintaining network efficiency (something you may well lose if you just wake and transmit). In doing so, it was following a fine 802.11 tradition of adding "YAMIPSM" - yet another mutually incompatible power saving mechanism.
So far I did not see any implementation with both devices sleeping. Would be interesting, but not simple to make it stable, I assume. Usually the "gateway" is connected to mains.
Cools... You are very awesome,Andreass !!! Why you can understand many things and create videos that are very useful just in a week? Are you doing research every day in your life? I'm courious...
One thing to consider is the significant difference in price between the ESP and the LoRa. Given the price difference I would pick the ESP every time especially since you need two for connections
Hi Andrea, did you try to check esp-now transmission range? Espressif says that it is better than wifi (around 400m). It's far less than LoRa! Esp-now seems to be a very good way to transmit data for LAN range but is not adapted for MAN or WAN use cases. Thanks for all your great videos. David from New-Caledonia (south pacific).
Hello Andreas, thank you for the videos. Your comparison is not taking into account the following LoRa modem features: a) A bandwidth 250 kHz and 500 kHz is possible with the LoRa chips, you tested 125 kHz. This means basically 2 or 4 times less transmitting time, resulting into energy savings. b) LoRa sending power can be adjusted between 2dBm and 20 dBm, I assume you tested with 14 dBm. To compare it with the ESP 2.4 GHz range, LoRa just needs 4 dBm power to offer similar ranges like the ESP. With 4 dBm LoRa needs about 40mA instead if 120mA, again a good point for LoRa. c) Waiting for incoming data (receiving), here LoRa needs only about 12mA, the ESP needs way more for listening for incoming packets. In our RadioShuttle protocol software for LoRa (www.radioshuttle.de) we implemented an automatic transmission power adjustment which basically means most of the time we need only a fraction of the power. Regards from the Arduino Hannover LoRa Group, Helmut
Thanks for your feedback. I thought 5000 hours for LoRa was ok and I stopped :-) Frankly: This video was about ESP-Now, and LoRa was just used as a comparison for some aspects. Maybe I will once do another LoRa video and include your radioshuttle infrastructure.
Hmm I way typing a message and somehow did a shortcut and lost it, going back to an earlier video I was watching, well earlier. My question is, does this ESP-now work with all esp8266's or just the model 12 and above? I have quite a collection of these devices, and I can really see some advantages using this form of communications, especially in our RV which we spend our winters in, hiding in Arizona, while the frigid winters of the Dakota's make old folks like us regret ever settaling up there. The Mojave Desert is a wonderful place to spend the winter, it's 72 degrees here now, while back home they are enjoying indian summer today with the temps over 50 degrees however at night the Dakota's fall to zero F or lower, while here in the desert, it can get darn right cool at 55 degrees or so. Anyhow thanks, we seem to share an intrest in many of the same devices, so I look forward to your posts, knowing I will learn something new every week, and I have this strange belief that if you learn somthing new every day, you can fight off old age.. Works for me, most folks have no idea that I am 66, most put me at about 40 and if I take off my beard, even younger....
Sounds like a nice life! Here we prepare also for winter which can also go way below 0 (Celsius, of course). I traveled once from LA to New Orleans in 8 days, all backroads and still remember that it was a nice experience. Phoenix, Albuquerque, Los Alamos, Memphis, Clarksdale... Yes, ESP-Now should work on all ESPs. It is just a library.
Hello Andreas, I really enjoy your videos, very well done and informative, they have inspired me to do more with UHF and above in my ham hobby. Regarding ESP-NOW and etc. Do you think it would be possible to use ESP-NOW with an HC-12 433MHz radio and ESP8266? I have the HC-12 working but it is dreadfully slow serial transfer. I also have ESP-NOW working as intended but limited range thru the forest. I have 20 acres of bush to transmit a water tank level back to the house, 433MHz I think would be best. Cheers
@@AndreasSpiess Thank you! I don't know how I missed that video, it is almost exactly the scenario I have on my property. I need to learn more about writing code, hardware is my strength. cheers
Thanks so much for another one of your wonderful videos! Btw, the SF7 most *definitely* must have higher range than the ESP8266's WiFi, right? I mean, WiFi can only go so far. Maybe 50, 100mts? SF7 I'm sure can go for kilometres, isn't that right?
A very good video, thank you so much! I have a question. There are modules with an ESP32 and OLED and Antenna with LORA-Chip. For that modules, is it possible to use that antenna also for esp.now? Or only for LORA? Thanks
I did, and still I am watching... But I can't find out if there is a module which Esp.Now is working with a external antenna (and not with the chip antenna)...?
Hi Andreas, first: Thanks a lot for your detailed and interesting videos. Because the ESP32 also include Bluetooth, what is your opinion about a Bluetooth Mesh for Sensors? Especally in battery consumption. Thx, in advance Olli
great video!! I am trying to do a point to point using esp32/esp8266 to send a temperature from a max6675 to another esp32/esp8266 to output to my nextion display or a tablet. Thanks for all your great videos
Ok if i write one i will i hadnt decided if i'll use the esp8266 or esp32 or one of each I but I'll post a link to my git hub page as soon either fine wine or right one
Thank you. What do you think abouth using esp-now to Control RC car? I think that problem will be with estabilishing new connections on every change of potentiometer. Did you do some testing on this? Or maybe esp-now sends only advertisment and its performance will be good. Esp-now is so Simple that i will check this for myself as soon as i can.
Awesome. I have been thinking about how to send data between some of my sensors on esp's. I am just hoping one day that WPA2-enterprise will start to work on the eps's.
It's what they use on university's so that's why i am interested. I work at an university, and i would be able to "roam" with my login an all of campus.
I think for in home battery powered sensors using only the chip without the dev board and then using two wall powered esp connected via GPIO and some serial protocol as a gateway would be a good option. One esp does the ESP NOW stuff and the other is permanently connected to WiFi. With that you don't have to reboot after each message and can transfer much faster in both directions.
Hi Andreas I work at the North Slope Alaska during the winter season and we test devices deployed at the field covered by snow / ice. The way to test those devices is using a small computer with a USB cable that is having a special head at the other end (internally this is only a USB extension, no circuits inside); this end is attached to the deployed device and the software recognize and test it. The deal is: this software works only using USB port, is no way to select other type of connection. I was reading about different modules and they converts USB to TTL and TX, USB to Bluetooth and TX or some modules use TTL and TX. Some of this modules allows two way communications, some are recognized as COM port and some work interfaced with Arduino, but no one of this is transparent for USB. That I try to say: Is any way to connect USB (D+ and D-) to a TX and RX pins in a module on one side and RX and TX to the special head connector (D+ and D-) at the other side and at this way simulate a ghost wire? The data string for this test is very short. I will appreciate your comments.
I do not know a simple solution for tranmitting USB. Our devices usually have a chip which converts Serial to USB. If this is the case for your devices it should be possible to find these two lines and add an ESP-01 with a little bit of code. But this has to be solved for each device differently
Hi Andrea. I use your info all the time and it is super useful, thanks for your time to give up the opportunity to learn. However, I have a stickie situation where I use esp32 current library and the esp32-now I used before are on 2.1.16 versions which give me errors when I try to use. I tried to get ESPNOW current version to work on my project where I have an "extern structure" in ui.h file and doesn't matter what I do I cannot get the extern structure information on my receiver esp32. I manage to get test data on the RX but not the extern data. Would you mind renewing your esp322-now to the latest? My project is transferring data from my Elecrow 5inch Display esp32s3 to a ESP32 and Arduino + WIFI combo. Thanks in advance😊
Hi Andreas, I always follow with interest your videos, they are very explanatory. I just think, in the ESP environment, should be also considered a comparison to the ESP Mesh protocol. To interface a small indoor mesh of ESP based sensors I am using the ESP Mesh library, what are the pro and cons of using ESP-Now instead of ESP Mesh? I would like to see a focused comparison. Thanks!
Yes I'm actually using it on Arduino 1.8.5, it is compatible with both ESP32 and 8266. There are some libraries around, but I'm using this one (github.com/gmag11/painlessMesh ) with success.
Just got my ESP32-C3 boards chatting with each other over ESP NOW with Long range enabled last night (both stations) and this evening I enabled encryption on both and the data still zaps through. I need to range test it properly, it doesn't like going through the double metal walls of a van at around 20 meters away and going through me definitely drops the range. But so good to see my 2 datasets passing in opposite directions past each other and populating different elements of the device relevant structures on some little 128 x 32 pixel displays. I'm curious as to whether there are ESP NOW range differences between ESP32 wireless with it's Bluetooth 4.2 and ESP32-C3 units with their bluetooth 5.0. Both are specified as BLE. Also curious as to whether ESP NOW data transmission speed slows at greater distance like BLE, or whether I have to manually drop the data rate. Without ESP NOW LR enabled I have tested and the nearly nothing getting through distance is close to 200 meters. Ideally the Espressif firmware under the "bump" would monitor Ack signal strength, CRC reliability and take action without user intervention required. I.E. automatic slow down of data and boost of TX strength, retries to boost max range. I've seen notes about setting " WiFi.setTxPower(WIFI_POWER_8_5dBm); " for the C3 chips, I tried just now commenting out on *both* sides and my data stopped updating in one direction only! Also... after a long hiatus doing non electronic creative things, it's been a reminder of real world consequences of shooting 60 bytes of data off every mS, that my channel 1 fixed router and laptop aren't much impressed with the interruption to their large MTU. Neither is my girl on her tablet!
If I remember right I once did a video about long range test with ESPnow (standard ESP32, but probably not too relevant). I got a few 100 meters range.
hello Herr Spiess, little late i discovered this video (well, according to my slow-mo learning progress along iot technologies). it looks to me that beside espnow the espressif since introduced an LR feature with their esp32 wifi unit. Seemingly LR stands for long range, with a trade-off of speed (down to 512/256 kbps) offering extended range that could be used together with espnow achieving even longer distance connectivity between units. it would be nice to see in an update video utilizing both features. best regards, lev
Just a quick note as I have not seen much written on the ESP-Now topic. I have tested distance/range of 2 different types of ESP32 boards, DOIT Devkit V1 and a TTGO T7_V1.0. I used the scripts by "Harringay..." as listed above. No matter what combination of boards the greatest distance I could get between master and slave was approx.15m. My wifi distances were similar. Anyone else carry out measurements with different boards ? Ta.
Thanks, very informative! By the way, in case of "standard" ESP mode calculation you used 90mA, but in ESP Now - only 80mA. Was it intentional or just a mistyping?
An other great video, as usual ! Did you check the impact of using encrypted transmission for the ESP-NOW ? LoRa is always encrypted. I wouldn't want to send clear text messages in a non-rural area.
No, I did not test it. I am not transferring any secret messages across such lines, so I had no need. I think, you just enter a key and then it encrypts (somehow)...
I am very interested in learning how much effect the distance between modules has on transmission time. If I had for example, several of these set up as a network around a farm and I was to systematically ping them from a moving device, could I measure distance variations due to transmission speed and thereby calculate location. Kind of like a private GPS system...
+Bill Field Waves travel with speed of light. I do not know the sitze of your farm, but assume the time needed to travel the distance is very short. Waves need 1.3 seconds from the moon to earth. If I remember right, cnlohr tried this approach, but without big success.
@Andreas, is there a difference between the power consumption of the different 802.11 standards (b/g/n/e/i)? My guess is no, but I am hoping for a yes.
Hello Andres. Many thanks for sharing all this knowledge with all of us !. Thanking advantage of your knowledge and experience, would you guide me on how to implement the ESPnow protocol using micropython, please?
![Felix "Unfair" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Oswujxm2Ag0/mqdefault.jpg)
WOW! How come I only heard about ESP Now after all this time?! This is a major breakthrough in battery powered sensing!!
Good question. It is quite old stuff...
Lol. 😂 i just heard about it this week.
yeah, I too only heard about it recently... then again I'm clueless on electronics, I only recently started looking into them. ESP-NOW seems like a very simple peer to peer protocol, with emphasis on simplicity rather than interoperation everywhere like the TCP. There are good reasons TCP/IP is designed the way it is, but there're also good reasons to use something simple, fast, low-latency and nonstandard on certain applications. First time I hear of Lora as well, I suppose there's applications for this too. I suppose electronics people can easily build a dead simple transmitter/receiver and if they can also code, they can write their own simple protocols if they have specific needs. ESP-NOW seems like a good start for us newbies to play with and make stuff do stuff quickly.
@@cliffchism9187 bro... I heard this week
Watching your newest video became mandatory part of my sunday morning routine. Many thanks for this - again - useful and interesting episode!
Thank you for your feedback and welcome to the "Sunday Morning Club"!
#metoo :)
It's just not Sunday morning without Andreas and Great Scott! The videos are so well thought out and professional, I very much appreciate the time they put into them.
I'm not sold. The advantage of LoRa is it can transmit over very large distances, as famously proven by yourself in your incredible video where you transmit from France! ESP now, being based on WiFi radio will not have anything like the range. These are apples and oranges. It might be good, say, around the house for sensors; but for SCADA and telemetry (where I'm developing LoRa products) this isn't appropriate. It is very interesting though. These little devices are simply incredible! Thanks for the video Andreas. Warmest regards from Aberdeen, Scotland.
I think, your comment is a summary of my video. My last sentence was:
"So, each of the three technologies has its perfect fit, but also areas where I would not use
it. Maybe this video helped you a little to do the right decisions in your
projects."
BTW: You are a great musician, too. I saw Mark Knopfler with Bob Dylan in Zurich. This was one of the best concerts ever. Because of Mark!
It would be interesting to do a test to check the range of the esp in this mode.
Andreas Spiess Ha ha! Thank you!
Could I have the video link of this LoRa test? thank you
Using the examples, and following your instructions, I linked two ESP32 Dev boards together and communicated successfully via ESPNOW. You are one of the best teachers on the internet. Glad I subscribed long ago. Now I have to actually send some data packets of my data. Swiss accents are very nice.
Thank you and I am glad it worked for you!
I’m now asking myself why I have not watched all your videos. I’m grateful that you have taken so much effort into micro controller technology. I will now research about ESP32 now.
Enjoy the ESP32. It has very good features.
Your contribution for us is invaluable! Thanks!
Augusto Massaro True story Bro!
Double that!!
Thanks, guys. You make my Sunday!
I finally ordered a couple Esp32's after years of holding out. Your videos are bringing me up to speed on them and their features and quirks as quick as humanly possible.
Thanks for saving me so much time!
You are welcome! And enjoy these wonderful chips.
Thank you very much for pointing me in the direction of ESP-now. This is the step I needed to make battery sensors based on esp32/esp8266. I did wrote a esp-now to mqtt gateway on one esp8266 without problems... First init WiFi and then init espnow. I have them both active without any problems. BTW, I like your video's very much. Keep them comming.
Thanks for the feedback. Could you probably post your code somewhere for others to be used? Seems interesting.
I have tried it. It works for some time, with a round trip time measured on the sensor ( master ) node that is twice as large ( 17 vs. 4 ms). The sensor node does never receive an ack in the send callback function
an error (1) is returned. Then, after about 8 messages, the WiFi node does not receive any moremessages.
Of course, I may be doing something wrong. See github.com/gitpeut/try-espnow.
To get this working I'll go for DualESP.
This is most excellent. I'm working on putting together a home automation system using ESP8266's for various sensors and switch supervision. One of the issues I was running into was how to toggle several different lamps on and off. I really don't want to be tied to a smartphone, PC, or some sort of master control panel to toggle the reading lamp in my den on and off. One idea was battery powered "remote" but constant connection to wifi would kill the batteries in no time.
With your ESPNow solution, I could setup an 8266 as a master/gateway to wifi and have several battery powered push buttons throughout the house.
You might also watch my videos (#101 and #108) on the dash buttons.
Sehr gut gemachtes Video. Ich habe mir direkt einen Außentemperatur Sensor mit dem ESP-07 (mit Antenne) und einer Empfangsstation mit dem ESP12e mit Adafruit Display nachgebaut. Das ganze mit den Programmen von HarringayMakerspace. Funktioniert tadellos. Immer wieder erstaunlich was man mit den ESP8266 Modulen anfangen kann. Weiter so !
Deswegen haben diese Chips so viele Anhänger...
Dear Andreas, as always your contribution is valued and highly valuable. In this case however I must comment on the continued usage of historical and outmoded references to "master" and "slave" as originating from a supremacist vocabulary. Recent similar discussions have remarked upon alternative functional terms (dependant upon context) as:
"control vs remote vs return" &
"origin vs target vs response" with:
a common term of "message" referring to the data from the control or originating device &
data sent back to the origin or control device being referred to as the "return or response"
This not an exclusive list but is a starting point for memorable replacements with CRR & OTR mnemonics for non exclusive examples of "Comfort Requires Relaxation" and "Open Truths Refresh"
Good Job Andreas!
Fortunately, we Swiss have no such history and our thinking is "clean". So I have no issue using these commonly accepted (in electronics) words.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangular_trade. I agree your national history and identity stand as exemplary and are iconic representations of neutrality. I do not think you would be drawn into any discussion to logically prove your outlook. However even Switzerland stands upon the shoulders of vast economic inputs from 400 years of lucrative triangular trade by Western European countries including the UK who are trying to avoid responsibility for the fallout from arms trading to the Middle East by exiting the European Union. Our histories are all based upon supremacist exploitation of an isolated peaceful continent and it's populations. Please reconsider your use of historically tainted and conceptually overloaded terms. Although you may say they are in use within an industry characterised by white males, the need to recognise seed concepts as a danger in the naive mind that has not yet grasped the functional concept of balance to establish self organizing neutrality. Such personalities are readily targeted by unbalanced supremacist personalities for their own gain. The symbols of national socialism circa 1930 Germany have been outlawed for similar good reason. Please show respect for the millions of personal tragedies created by the paired concepts of "slave" and "master". Non but ourselves can free our minds, but we can help each other. Thank you, Andreas
Very interesting video and the ESP-Now concept (which I hadn't heard of) will be invaluable for my battery driven ESP8266/ESP32 devices.You could say it will transform it! Many thanks to taking the time to make this video and Seasons Greetings from the UK to you and your family
Thank you and also Merry Christmas!
The months december and january are designated for home automation and electronics, these were well timed videos. Thanks for pointing us to node-red and to this possibility!
You are welcome!
Very interesting video. I didn't know about ESP-Now. Thanks!
I also learned just recently about it. And thought, it could be a nice addition
Thank you once again. Very interesting and gets me thinking of all the possibilities. I really appreciate the time and effort you put into your videos. Thank you.
Richard Wilson Very true
Thank you! You like to watch the videos and I like to read all these nice comments during the whole Sunday! This is what we call win-win...
Thanks for all great videos! I experimented with the ESP8266 and ESPNow and WiFi and found that the WiFi channel selectivity of these is extremly limited. When signals are strong, the STA will easily connect to an AP on a neighboring channel and ESPNow transmissions sometimes get ack-ed on channels that are even further away. When a unit receives an ESP message that does not mean that the transmitter sent that on the same WiFi channel.
That makes it hard to make an automatic channel selection by scanning for response (that and the issue that channel is not easy to control in STA mode). Obviously it gets better with more distance but the crosstalk easily reaches 10 meters or more. It also means that distance performance and your measurements probably get influenced by nearby transmissions. A strong signal from a nearbby transmitter even when on a different channel may have a large impact.
What you did is a real life situation so it is a good indication of what can be expected, but it makes it probably not really reproducible, it is more an indication of what is to be expected.
I wish RSSI was avaialble for ESPNow receptions and ack, that would help a lot. Now I get responses on multiple channels and have resorted to picking the center one where there is response. I haven't tried with a ESP32.
I was not aware that crosstalk can be demodulated. That is very strange behavior! Thanks for the info
Thank you Andreas for your sharing your work to the community! It's exciting to think of the applications that can be made possible through the amazing ESP8266 chip as well as LoRa.
You are welcome!
I had heard but forgotten about this, thanks again Andreas! I went directly to Ali Ex to buy memory for my box of ESP01dev boards. This should enable OTA, free some GPIO and make for some super low power 'things' about the house. I see a commercial app too, many thanks again!
If you do not need lots of pins, the ESP-01 is still interesting...
@Andreas Spiess thanks for all your videos & effort
My pleasure!
Really like your videos Andreas! I am a novice learning and find that they have improved my learning better than any others. Thank you!
Nice to read. Thank you for your feedback!
Andreas, you really are a treasure. Thank you for all the effort you put into each of these videos.
You are welcome!
Great Video! I have been toying with having several sensors around the house but up to now I haven't seen a good way to handle it. I didn't want to get into LoRa, moe unique boards and new things to learn. I also am moving everything over to the ESP32 so this all fits for me. Thanks again.
You are welcome!
Awesome video! Here's a project idea: many esp8266 devices connected via esp-now to a esp8266 master that has a serial connection to a raspberry pi. All messages from the esp-now nodes go through this serial connection to node red for automation tasks. That would mean you could skip mqtt completely if you only need esp-now nodes. Could be a unique network style.
This is definitely a better idea than the one I used if you have many sensors. I found a plan to add another ESP for MQTT. But your proposal is simpler. And if you use a Pi zero, also not too expensive.
I was thinking, there's one disadvantage with ESP-Now: you're relying on an ESP module to do all the receiving of signals. They usually have PCB antennas, except for the ESP-07, so range will probably not be as good as with a router. And with routers you can also have multiple routers serving the same WiFi network for really big spaces. Could be problematic when trying to cover a big house or yard with sensors.
Would be nice if there was an ESP8266 or ESP32 based board that is focused on getting the best range, with a properly tuned external antenna and everything. Or if there was a way to have traditional hardware listen for ESP-Now messages (it should be doable, but I doubt there is software for it).
Another great and informative video! Congrats Andreas on the very soon arrival of 50k subscriber's.
Maybe as a Christmas gift!
As always a great topic, that i didnt even know existed. All the news here on this channel! i think the big fight for this wonderful chip is now battery consumption ( a part from security, because my test show that more often than not, ESP32 crashes and locks at least once in a week, as weel as QoS). One sample per hour is not really my standard. Maybe a video putting all of our choices and the pros/cons comparison. BLE, LoRa, ESP now, Wifi (and other we dont yet know about?). Battery consumption (incl wake from sleep), range, bit rate, and QoS. Great work as always Andreas!
A lot of wishes... Maybe one day they become true ;-)
yes and a lot of work, i know. but you have made most of the tests now. i was thinking the Big Recap of those. so maybe less work. anyway, whatever you do, i will follow! thx
Ein aufwändig gemachtes Video, das einen tollen Überblick gibt ! Vielen Dank dafür ☺️
Gern geschehen!
Great video and very useful. Will solve a problem Ia'm having with a solar powered ESP32 project running out of power at this time of year. Was going to rebuild form scratch but using ESP-Now should hopefully solve the problem. Many thanks, keep up the good work.
Maybe it helps at least...
It is becoming a habit for me to like your videos and then watch them.
Thank you for your support!
Wow! Mr. Spiess this is news! That looks really interesting. Thank you for this video, going to investigate more, looks promising!I can imagine the applications like mesh sensors for farmers, for preventing fires and so on...
Thanks for your feedback!
Thanks again Andreas, you are definitely the best companion for any project
Thank you!
Excellent video, as always. Like most I wasn't aware of ESP-Now.
Thank you!
This is exactly what I wanted. I'll be implementing this on some marine monitors! Thanks for this vid.
You are welcome!
Very good again - lots of interesting information and relevant observation
Glad you enjoyed it
@@AndreasSpiess
If you have time I would like to hear ideas about measuring liquid pressure like the bear pressure - simple and reliable - I need to estimate water level in a elevated storage tank and pressure seem to be a simple way but could not find a simple transducer .
Any way , thank you for time .
They sell pressure sensors on AliExpress. But I do not know if they fit your requirements. I searched with "Water Air Pressure Sensor"
@@AndreasSpiess
Using your hint I found one at Amazon that might work . Thank you
Very nice job Andreas as usual!
Thank you!
Andreas, thank you for leading me to Anthony Elder's code resulting in a 220 mS communication period and power savings. After your video was published he has offered an even lower-power alternative in espnow-sensor-minimal.ino that describes a 40 mS period. This uses a sleep function called "ESP.deepSleepInstant". After verifying that the receiver/sender pair worked with ESP.deepsleep() I had some trouble using deepSleepInstant. It seemed to be too fast in closing down - perhaps shutting down the radio before it was done. Later I found that my last Serial.print functions were missing. Inserting a delay(10) right before deepSleepInstant seemed to fix it. BUT THE BIG NEWS is that the measured time between "send" and the end of the callback function is averaging 100 mS. Not as fast as the advertised 40 mS, but still a big savings for the battery! Very un-powerful! Hope this helps your viewers.
Thanks for the info. Serial print takes some time. And if you place a sleep command after such a statement the info is no more sent out.
@@AndreasSpiess Yes, Serial.print takes time. And the same is true for other communication logic, I presume. I was thinking that the processor was thinking... do A, stop, then do B, stop, then do C. My error was thinking these ESP devices are 'single threaded' or not 'multi-tasking', however they are really multi-threaded and multi-tasking, because B can start before A has finished, I think I am experiencing. (Fortran N77 was my last class on the subject, long ago.) If the device is shut down before a transmission is completed (serial, or radio) then the transmission that was underway is not completed, right? For me that is a design discovery and an 'abstraction' convenience as it makes it easier for rookies like me.
BTW: "cavalier 39" seems to be my default username when I have that gmail account open. My true identity is Craig Larson, a loyal patreon'ista. (I advise all Andreas fans to join Patreon and support the channel! Do your part!)
Thanks for again a great and inspiring video.
As I read in the previous comments, it would be great to see an example were an ESP sends data to an ESP with a serial connection to a raspberry running node red.
Maybe I will do something like that, but I am not sure. Maybe somebody else will do it?
@@AndreasSpiess I did it myself, see www.instructables.com/id/ESP-NOW-Home-Automation-Esp8266-Raspberry-Pi-MQTT
Hi Andreas, very informative video, thank you
Whilst there are plenty of examples of its use, I've spent a lot of time trying to find the
ESP8266 library itself, it seems Github has many variations and function constructs
and defines are different between different versions, with different people adding various
arduino library wrappers.
I've done quite a few 'Alexa' projects so I'm happy working with the esp8266 via WiFi, I use
only the tiny ESP-01 boards, using the ESP extensions in the Arduino IDE and programmed via
async serial. All work well. But I've been unable to compile anything at all for espnow!
As yet I've not found anyone successfully using espnow on the ESP-01. If I could just get the
simplest espnow example to compile I would be happy!
Keep up the good work, the Lora videos were particularly helpful.
Cheers :-)
Phil
Maybe the flash memory is too small?
Crazy! I just calculated a 3 year lifetime when running on a 2600mAh 18650, sending data every hour. Work just got really fun.
:-)
Thanks for this video, very insightful
Glad you enjoyed it!
Andreass, you are my hero. I look forward to each of your episodes. Your style is flawless.
Can you do some more on the" ESP Now" but with detailed range testing. This is of great interest to me. Will the range be the same for both the ESP8266 and teh ESP32?
I plan a video concerning ranges in the near future.
Yes, Interesting. I find the RMS function of the oscilloscope useful for measurement of power in complex waveform events.
Good idea. So far, I never used it for such signals. Are you sure it will work with these small spikes?
thank you very much Mr Andreas
You are welcome!
Awesome...
Just one question though...
for esp-now... is it possible to have a deep slept esp32 and wake it up with espnow?
What I want to achieve is, a tag that can have a small battery+buzzer+esp, can be attached to my car keys,
so i can locate it with another esp :)
it would be nice if the tag was in power saving mode in the interest of battery
Keep in mind: Deep sleep means also that the chip does not receive. I am not sure if this is what you want...
Another great video Andreas, thanks!
You are welcome.
Congratulations, excellent video.
Thanks, very well explained!
You are welcome!
Very very cool. Something worth trying might be to measure signal strength and create a mesh with multiple devices
Like this? github.com/gmag11/painlessMesh
Oh wow!. thats pretty cool. But I don't think it uses ESP now
It does not, it forms a network with devices set to the same AP, even though the AP does not have to exist, just AP name and password must be the same.
defiantly one to play around with
It seems, that Espressif also offers a mesh ( espressif.com/en/products/software/esp-mesh/overview )
If you compare them, then you should use static IP, as you use static (MAC) address in the ESP-now.
The data size for IP addresses are not a problem with the high transfer speed.
ESP and LORA have much longer range. (ESP as it uses Internet, but have to have a router near).
1. Static MAC is not the same as static IP for me. My router does not like too many static IP addresses, so my limit is there.
2. I plan to do a comparison about the ranges
Static address are the same, what ever format they are in. As MAC address are the only address level for ESP-now, that is static addresses. IP dosen't actually care about MAC address, as that could be changed for the same MAC: That is different abstraction levels. With static IP, you don't need the negotiation time.
Yes, that is a problem with small home routers.
Really helpful, thank you.
You are welcome!
Jus Came To watch detail about esp-now but now im enlightened...
:-)
@@AndreasSpiess Didn't thought it would be freaking detailed thank you very much for the hard work...
hi , an great video as always ! thx
You are welcome!
Incredible =D thanks for this really really cool videos
Thanks!
Great material. He helped me a lot to understand the problem you raised in this episode. I'm currently doing a similar project in college. would you help me and recommend some internet sources or a book in which this topic is extended? I also want to encrypt my connection and get the maximum point-to-point speed possible.
You have to do the research yourself because I am not interested in security and therefore have no knowledge. Books are usually outdated before they are printed ;-)
Interesting. I'd not come across this protocol before. I have to declare an interest as somebody who worked on the 802.11 standard. The protocol appears to use the 802.11 Vendor-specific action frame, which is a way to allow it to use its 802.11 hardware, but to achieve a proprietary protocol that won't inconvenience other users of the same band (because they will discard the packets). The issue for any low-power protocol is controlling who is awake to listen. The original 802.11 protocol (circa 1997) supports ad-hoc power saving. The essence of this is that devices share an approximate clock, and wake for a window during which their intent to communicate is declared. A device seeing it is an intended recipient stays awake until it is allowed to sleep. But this was not "fine-grained" like you need.
I don't see any of this complexity in ESP-now. So I have to conclude that one of the two ESP nodes (in the role of controller) has to stay awake permanently to provide the other with the ability to wake, transmit, and sleep in short order.
802.11ah added "Target Wake Interval" to coordinate a network of such devices while maintaining network efficiency (something you may well lose if you just wake and transmit). In doing so, it was following a fine 802.11 tradition of adding "YAMIPSM" - yet another mutually incompatible power saving mechanism.
So far I did not see any implementation with both devices sleeping. Would be interesting, but not simple to make it stable, I assume. Usually the "gateway" is connected to mains.
Excellent, as always
Thanks!
Interesting! thanks for posting!
You are welcome!
Cools...
You are very awesome,Andreass !!!
Why you can understand many things and create videos that are very useful just in a week? Are you doing research every day in your life? I'm courious...
Yes, of course I work nearly every day and sometimes also the nights on my hobby. This keeps me young...
3:29 you meant http right?
Also gr8 video btw. This was exactly what i needed for my current project :-)
I meant HTML but forgot HTTP.
Very very useful thanks, terrific video
You are welcome!
Thank you for this great and helpful video!
At 8:39 you ignored the high peak values when calculating battery life. Are they always negligible?
They are quite short and included in the 80mA
One thing to consider is the significant difference in price between the ESP and the LoRa. Given the price difference I would pick the ESP every time especially since you need two for connections
:-)
Hi Andrea, did you try to check esp-now transmission range? Espressif says that it is better than wifi (around 400m). It's far less than LoRa! Esp-now seems to be a very good way to transmit data for LAN range but is not adapted for MAN or WAN use cases. Thanks for all your great videos. David from New-Caledonia (south pacific).
I am not sure if I tried it once. But I have some ideas and probably will cover ESP-now in the near future.
Hello Andreas, thank you for the videos. Your comparison is not taking into account the following LoRa modem features:
a) A bandwidth 250 kHz and 500 kHz is possible with the LoRa chips, you tested 125 kHz. This means basically 2 or 4 times less transmitting time, resulting into energy savings.
b) LoRa sending power can be adjusted between 2dBm and 20 dBm, I assume you tested with 14 dBm. To compare it with the ESP 2.4 GHz range, LoRa just needs 4 dBm power to offer similar ranges like the ESP. With 4 dBm LoRa needs about 40mA instead if 120mA, again a good point for LoRa.
c) Waiting for incoming data (receiving), here LoRa needs only about 12mA, the ESP needs way more for listening for incoming packets.
In our RadioShuttle protocol software for LoRa (www.radioshuttle.de) we implemented an automatic transmission power adjustment which basically means most of the time we need only a fraction of the power.
Regards from the Arduino Hannover LoRa Group, Helmut
Thanks for your feedback. I thought 5000 hours for LoRa was ok and I stopped :-)
Frankly: This video was about ESP-Now, and LoRa was just used as a comparison for some aspects. Maybe I will once do another LoRa video and include your radioshuttle infrastructure.
Fantastic video
Thank you!
Hmm I way typing a message and somehow did a shortcut and lost it, going back to an earlier video I was watching, well earlier. My question is, does this ESP-now work with all esp8266's or just the model 12 and above? I have quite a collection of these devices, and I can really see some advantages using this form of communications, especially in our RV which we spend our winters in, hiding in Arizona, while the frigid winters of the Dakota's make old folks like us regret ever settaling up there. The Mojave Desert is a wonderful place to spend the winter, it's 72 degrees here now, while back home they are enjoying indian summer today with the temps over 50 degrees however at night the Dakota's fall to zero F or lower, while here in the desert, it can get darn right cool at 55 degrees or so. Anyhow thanks, we seem to share an intrest in many of the same devices, so I look forward to your posts, knowing I will learn something new every week, and I have this strange belief that if you learn somthing new every day, you can fight off old age.. Works for me, most folks have no idea that I am 66, most put me at about 40 and if I take off my beard, even younger....
Sounds like a nice life! Here we prepare also for winter which can also go way below 0 (Celsius, of course). I traveled once from LA to New Orleans in 8 days, all backroads and still remember that it was a nice experience. Phoenix, Albuquerque, Los Alamos, Memphis, Clarksdale...
Yes, ESP-Now should work on all ESPs. It is just a library.
Hello Andreas, I really enjoy your videos, very well done and informative, they have inspired me to do more with UHF and above in my ham hobby. Regarding ESP-NOW and etc. Do you think it would be possible to use ESP-NOW with an HC-12 433MHz radio and ESP8266? I have the HC-12 working but it is dreadfully slow serial transfer. I also have ESP-NOW working as intended but limited range thru the forest. I have 20 acres of bush to transmit a water tank level back to the house, 433MHz I think would be best. Cheers
I would look into LoRa on either 433 or 868/915MHz. Search for "Farm Data Relay System"
@@AndreasSpiess Thank you! I don't know how I missed that video, it is almost exactly the scenario I have on my property. I need to learn more about writing code, hardware is my strength. cheers
I would like to see a follow up video on rage :)
Great video
I hope I will find the time in the next future...
Great video! Thank you.
You are welcome!
Thanks, great video, very profesional!
Glad you liked it!
very useful and great content.
Thank you!
Thanks so much for another one of your wonderful videos! Btw, the SF7 most *definitely* must have higher range than the ESP8266's WiFi, right? I mean, WiFi can only go so far. Maybe 50, 100mts? SF7 I'm sure can go for kilometres, isn't that right?
+Tejas Arlimatti You are most probably right. But I will try it in another video.
A very good video, thank you so much! I have a question. There are modules with an ESP32 and OLED and Antenna with LORA-Chip. For that modules, is it possible to use that antenna also for esp.now? Or only for LORA? Thanks
Lora is a different radio on a different frequency. The antenna is only fo this radio. Maybe you watch my video concerning these boards.
I did, and still I am watching... But I can't find out if there is a module which Esp.Now is working with a external antenna (and not with the chip antenna)...?
The ESP-07 module has aWiFi antenna connector
Yes that's right - but the ESP-07 is only an esp8266. I am looking for an ESP32 with antenna for EspNow
Ver nice and clean explanation about ESP-Now; quick question can we read message stream with mobile phone in wilderness?
I do not think so. For wilderness project you might watch my meshtastic video
@@AndreasSpiess Thanks a lot, that is exactly I was looking; you are always fantastic.
Hi Andreas,
first: Thanks a lot for your detailed and interesting videos. Because the ESP32 also include Bluetooth, what is your opinion about a Bluetooth Mesh for Sensors? Especally in battery consumption.
Thx, in advance
Olli
I am no fan of mesh in general. If it would be useful, It would be used much more. In my opinion it is ok for a fe niches. BT only has a small reach.
great video!! I am trying to do a point to point using esp32/esp8266 to send a temperature from a max6675 to another esp32/esp8266 to output to my nextion display or a tablet. Thanks for all your great videos
You are welcome and good luck! If you have a sketch with mixed ESP8266 and ESP32 it would be nice if you share it. I did not find one.
Ok if i write one i will i hadnt decided if i'll use the esp8266 or esp32 or one of each I but I'll post a link to my git hub page as soon either fine wine or right one
Thank you. What do you think abouth using esp-now to Control RC car? I think that problem will be with estabilishing new connections on every change of potentiometer. Did you do some testing on this? Or maybe esp-now sends only advertisment and its performance will be good. Esp-now is so Simple that i will check this for myself as soon as i can.
I can imagine that it would work.
Love your video's - spot on! Quick Question on video #172: Can ESP-Now still communicate in "Station+AP" mode? Or is it one or the other.
I understand it can be both.
Awesome. I have been thinking about how to send data between some of my sensors on esp's.
I am just hoping one day that WPA2-enterprise will start to work on the eps's.
I am not a network specialist so I do not know the advantages of such an "enterprise" infrastructure (at least for a maker like me)
It's what they use on university's so that's why i am interested. I work at an university, and i would be able to "roam" with my login an all of campus.
Aha. That's what I thought.
very much informative......
Glad you think so!
Very nice video! Do you have an educated guess how the range would be of ESP-Now relative to WiFi range?
I assume it will be similar, but I plan a video to check.
Andreas Spiess I am looking forward to see it!!! Thanks.
I think for in home battery powered sensors using only the chip without the dev board and then using two wall powered esp connected via GPIO and some serial protocol as a gateway would be a good option. One esp does the ESP NOW stuff and the other is permanently connected to WiFi. With that you don't have to reboot after each message and can transfer much faster in both directions.
Maybe you are right. Just try it and you know ;-)
@@AndreasSpiess 4 bare esp32 were in the mail this morning. :)
5 years later I learned something new...
Good to know :-)
Hi Andreas
I work at the North Slope Alaska during the winter season and we test devices deployed at the field covered by snow / ice.
The way to test those devices is using a small computer with a USB cable that is having a special head at the other end (internally this is only a USB extension, no circuits inside); this end is attached to the deployed device and the software recognize and test it.
The deal is: this software works only using USB port, is no way to select other type of connection.
I was reading about different modules and they converts USB to TTL and TX, USB to Bluetooth and TX or some modules use TTL and TX.
Some of this modules allows two way communications, some are recognized as COM port and some work interfaced with Arduino, but no one of this is transparent for USB.
That I try to say:
Is any way to connect USB (D+ and D-) to a TX and RX pins in a module on one side and RX and TX to the special head connector (D+ and D-) at the other side and at this way simulate a ghost wire?
The data string for this test is very short.
I will appreciate your comments.
I do not know a simple solution for tranmitting USB. Our devices usually have a chip which converts Serial to USB. If this is the case for your devices it should be possible to find these two lines and add an ESP-01 with a little bit of code. But this has to be solved for each device differently
Hi Andrea. I use your info all the time and it is super useful, thanks for your time to give up the opportunity to learn. However, I have a stickie situation where I use esp32 current library and the esp32-now I used before are on 2.1.16 versions which give me errors when I try to use. I tried to get ESPNOW current version to work on my project where I have an "extern structure" in ui.h file and doesn't matter what I do I cannot get the extern structure information on my receiver esp32. I manage to get test data on the RX but not the extern data. Would you mind renewing your esp322-now to the latest? My project is transferring data from my Elecrow 5inch Display esp32s3 to a ESP32 and Arduino + WIFI combo. Thanks in advance😊
So far, I have no ESP-Now plans :-( But you never know...
Awesome!
Thanks!
Hi Andreas, I always follow with interest your videos, they are very explanatory. I just think, in the ESP environment, should be also considered a comparison to the ESP Mesh protocol. To interface a small indoor mesh of ESP based sensors I am using the ESP Mesh library, what are the pro and cons of using ESP-Now instead of ESP Mesh? I would like to see a focused comparison. Thanks!
+Alberto Perro ESP mesh is new to me. Does it work in the Arduino IDE?
Yes I'm actually using it on Arduino 1.8.5, it is compatible with both ESP32 and 8266. There are some libraries around, but I'm using this one (github.com/gmag11/painlessMesh ) with success.
Thanks for the link. I have to look at it when I have time.
man, you're a godsend
:-)
Just got my ESP32-C3 boards chatting with each other over ESP NOW with Long range enabled last night (both stations) and this evening I enabled encryption on both and the data still zaps through. I need to range test it properly, it doesn't like going through the double metal walls of a van at around 20 meters away and going through me definitely drops the range. But so good to see my 2 datasets passing in opposite directions past each other and populating different elements of the device relevant structures on some little 128 x 32 pixel displays. I'm curious as to whether there are ESP NOW range differences between ESP32 wireless with it's Bluetooth 4.2 and ESP32-C3 units with their bluetooth 5.0. Both are specified as BLE. Also curious as to whether ESP NOW data transmission speed slows at greater distance like BLE, or whether I have to manually drop the data rate. Without ESP NOW LR enabled I have tested and the nearly nothing getting through distance is close to 200 meters. Ideally the Espressif firmware under the "bump" would monitor Ack signal strength, CRC reliability and take action without user intervention required. I.E. automatic slow down of data and boost of TX strength, retries to boost max range. I've seen notes about setting " WiFi.setTxPower(WIFI_POWER_8_5dBm); " for the C3 chips, I tried just now commenting out on *both* sides and my data stopped updating in one direction only! Also... after a long hiatus doing non electronic creative things, it's been a reminder of real world consequences of shooting 60 bytes of data off every mS, that my channel 1 fixed router and laptop aren't much impressed with the interruption to their large MTU. Neither is my girl on her tablet!
If I remember right I once did a video about long range test with ESPnow (standard ESP32, but probably not too relevant). I got a few 100 meters range.
hello Herr Spiess, little late i discovered this video (well, according to my slow-mo learning progress along iot technologies). it looks to me that beside espnow the espressif since introduced an LR feature with their esp32 wifi unit. Seemingly LR stands for long range, with a trade-off of speed (down to 512/256 kbps) offering extended range that could be used together with espnow achieving even longer distance connectivity between units. it would be nice to see in an update video utilizing both features. best regards, lev
Good idea!
Just a quick note as I have not seen much written on the ESP-Now topic. I have tested distance/range of 2 different types of ESP32 boards, DOIT Devkit V1 and a TTGO T7_V1.0. I used the scripts by "Harringay..." as listed above. No matter what combination of boards the greatest distance I could get between master and slave was approx.15m. My wifi distances were similar. Anyone else carry out measurements with different boards ? Ta.
Thanks, very informative! By the way, in case of "standard" ESP mode calculation you used 90mA, but in ESP Now - only 80mA. Was it intentional or just a mistyping?
I added a little for the many small spikes. For sure not accurate, but I am an engineer, not an accountant ;-)
Cool! I used ESP-NOW in my ESP32 clock!
Now I watched your cool clock video!
An other great video, as usual ! Did you check the impact of using encrypted transmission for the ESP-NOW ? LoRa is always encrypted. I wouldn't want to send clear text messages in a non-rural area.
No, I did not test it. I am not transferring any secret messages across such lines, so I had no need. I think, you just enter a key and then it encrypts (somehow)...
I am very interested in learning how much effect the distance between modules has on transmission time. If I had for example, several of these set up as a network around a farm and I was to systematically ping them from a moving device, could I measure distance variations due to transmission speed and thereby calculate location. Kind of like a private GPS system...
+Bill Field Waves travel with speed of light. I do not know the sitze of your farm, but assume the time needed to travel the distance is very short. Waves need 1.3 seconds from the moon to earth.
If I remember right, cnlohr tried this approach, but without big success.
Great video, very informative.
What alterations are need to your Slave code in order to receive data from multiple Master units?
I do not know. Maybe Google knows more?
Thanks for replying, I found the answer shortly after my initial post. 👍🏻
@Andreas, is there a difference between the power consumption of the different 802.11 standards (b/g/n/e/i)? My guess is no, but I am hoping for a yes.
You can look at the datasheet. But I think it is not relevant
Hello Andres. Many thanks for sharing all this knowledge with all of us !. Thanking advantage of your knowledge and experience, would you guide me on how to implement the ESPnow protocol using micropython, please?
I have no experience with MicroPython :-(
@@AndreasSpiess Many thanks for your prompt answer...and sorry for misspelling your name. The auto correct some times is not that helpful
Thanks for sharing
You are welcome!
I f-ing love your videos
Thank you!
Hi Andreas. You should explain the range difference in LoRa
I think I have many videos about the range of Lora. But I am planning a video about Range of Wi-Fi and BT