Multiple wifi remotes

[klafbang]

I'm planning to throw the wifi remote along with the temperature sensor, light sensor, and a couple relays into a box to control my outside shades.  I plan on making one such box for each group of shades, for a total of 5 boxes.  I've a couple of questions about the wifi remote as the documentation is quite spotty.

- The first question is whether I can connect 5 such boxes containing 5 wifi remotes to a single Pine64?  I would prefer to simplify the network as much as possible and avoid having to put a full computer in each box.

- Is the I2C bus of the wifi remote an extension of a Pine64 I2C bus, or is it separate?

- Equally importantly, is the addressing on the bus I2C bus of the wifi remotes separate?  The temperature sensor does not allow setting the I2C address, so you can only have one on the bus which would not work if the buses were all joined together to one, and with 5 boxes with a couple sensors and relays, I'd quickly run very close to the limit of I2C addresses.

- What's the range of the on-chip wifi antenna?

[hazerty]

the RTL8723BS it's 2,4ghz B/G/N and bluetooth 2.1, 3.0 and 4.0.
For ESP8266, it is 2,4GHz B/G/N

Multiple simultaneous connections are possible but I don't know how many client can support Simultaneous .
Some Wifi module can have up to 10 clients.

[khgoh]

You can connect all the Wifi remote IO through a wifi router or ap to connect to Pine A64 board. Pine A64 can run a Tcp server to accept connection from Wifi remote IO unit. on the Wifi remote IO unit you can run a Tcp client connect to Pine A64 and forward the temperature and light sensor info. The Wifi remote IO need to manage it's own I2c bus. Connecting 5 unit of wifi remote IO to one Pine A64 should not be any problem.

On the Wifi remote IO unit, only have one 5pin I2c port. Since temperature sensor don't have address selection, you can only have one unit per I2c bus for the same device. Light sensor can share the the I2c bus with temperatures sensor because it has different Device ID.

as for the Wifi remote IO connection distance with on board antenna, it is all depending with the surrounding environment but normal is about 5 to 10m. for longer distance, you should install an external antenna.

For more information on the Wifi remote IO unit, you can refer to ESP8266 module datasheet at
http://bbs.espressif.com/


Sent from my SM-N910C using Tapatalk

[klafbang]

Thanks for the replies. Exactly what I needed. Seems it will work exactly as I hoped/expected

[MichaelMeissner]

You can connect all the Wifi remote IO through a wifi router or ap to connect to Pine A64 board. Pine A64 can run a Tcp server to accept connection from Wifi remote IO unit. on the Wifi remote IO unit you can run a Tcp client connect to Pine A64 and forward the temperature and light sensor info. The Wifi remote IO need to manage it's own I2c bus. Connecting 5 unit of wifi remote IO to one Pine A64 should not be any problem.

On the Wifi remote IO unit, only have one 5pin I2c port. Since temperature sensor don't have address selection, you can only have one unit per I2c bus for the same device. Light sensor can share the the I2c bus with temperatures sensor because it has different Device ID.

You can get i2c multiplexers that can multiplex multiple i2c buses to allow more than one temp. sensor. For example, Adafruit sells one that multiplexes up to 8 i2c buses, and you can set the address for each multiplexer to one of 8 values, which means you in theory have up to 64 devices on an i2c network with the same id. Now, whether 64 devices could actually be used due to power, heat, and transmission concerns might be an issue, but for small number of devices, you can have multiple devices with a fixed i2c address on a bus. https://www.adafruit.com/products/2717

[klafbang]

Oh spiffy! Good to know, thanks. Probably won't be needed in this case as each remote has their own I2C bus and the address of everything but the temperature sensor seems to be configurable, but it might definitely come in handy.

[adeneb]

[quote pid='2779' dateline='1456585441']

For more information on the Wifi remote IO unit, you can refer to ESP8266 module datasheet at....

[/quote]

Is there information specific to the wifi Remote board from Pine?
I was able to setup the Ip, Ap, and password with a USB to ttl converter. What I am looking for is how to send a command to open/close the relay. My thinking is that there should be a way to activate it via wifi from any device not just from the pine. I guess I'm looking for syntax or command structure. 

I am also wondering if an arduino can connect to this board and use the wifi remote as a wifi receiver?

What other capability does the board have with the other provided headers. This board as built is spec to pine64 and internet search does not provide any clear direction on its use.

I did goto the expressive site,(I know spelling) it was a little Chinese to me. Its info was limited to the wifi chip and not it's peripherals.

[khgoh]

[quote pid='2779' dateline='1456585441']

For more information on the Wifi remote IO unit, you can refer to ESP8266 module datasheet at....

Is there information specific to the wifi Remote board from Pine?
I was able to setup the Ip, Ap, and password with a USB to ttl converter. What I am looking for is how to send a command to open/close the relay. My thinking is that there should be a way to activate it via wifi from any device not just from the pine. I guess I'm looking for syntax or command structure. 

I am also wondering if an arduino can connect to this board and use the wifi remote as a wifi receiver?

What other capability does the board have with the other provided headers. This board as built is spec to pine64 and internet search does not provide any clear direction on its use.

I did goto the expressive site,(I know spelling) it was a little Chinese to me. Its info was limited to the wifi chip and not it's peripherals.
[/quote]

Hi Adeneb,
The detail information for the Wifi Remote I2c device is at here. You can manage all the Wifi Remote i2c hardware through the use of the PineWifiServer (install in the Pine64). Detail info on how to setup the server is at Our wiki page.

Once the PineWifiServer is install and running, you can use telnet to telnet into the server at port 10000. The PineWifiServer only allow 1 telnet connection at one time. please make sure you are not running the WifiAppDemo at the same time.

Once you have telnet into the console, you can type 'help' and all the available command will be listed.

If your Remote wifi i2c devices is already connected, just type 'list' and it will show you the current connected Remote wifi i2c devices.

Let say the device index in the list is 1, you just need to type 'setrelay 1 1' to turn on the relay and type 'setrelay 1 0' to turn off the relay.

The source code for the PineWifiServer, WifiAppDemo and the Firmware for the ESP hardware already posted on the download section on the wiki page. 

For connection arduino to this wifi board, I don't think should be a problem, you can either control the board through the PineWifiServer by sending the command to the console port (Which is much easier), or direct communicate will all the Remote Wifi Devices. You can refer to the Firmware source code on the detail communication data packet format and communication command.

In term of the feature for the Wifi Remote I2c board, the firmware currently allow you to pull any I2c device on the bus and at the same time has a build in relay that can handle AC 240V. For more information on all the I/O pin pull out on the board connector, please refer here.

Regards,
KH Goh

[adeneb]

Thank you sir, I will work with it this week.
Aaron.

[Steamkraft]

@adeneb - did you found anything about the syntax or command structure? or anyone else?