ESP8266 Mesh Network

Posted in Arduino, ESP-01, ESP-02, ESP-03, ESP-04, ESP-05, ESP-06, ESP-07, ESP-08, ESP-09, ESP-10, ESP-11, ESP-12, ESP8266 by

mesh networkI don’t want to raise false hopes but there’s a fellow over at http://www.esp8266.com/ who claims he’s getting on with creating a mesh network with ESP8266 boards. If he can do that AND have one of them talk to the outside world – for example an Android APP using TCP/IP — then I’m throwing my radio network in the bin. This would have to be very reliable but given the rubbish range of most of the little radios and the fact that most places are wired for WIFI… there are just SO many possibilities for this. I’ll be keeping an eye on this chap  – look in after Christmas for more.

08:49AM – You’re going to love this – he has something to demonstrate – and the more I think about it – the more I think he’s onto a winner. The units as you probably know are able to be access points – and clients at the same time.  You may also know that you can get a list of available access points and signal strengths nearby. This is where the NRF24L01 devices go wrong – you can’t do that.

esp-01So given that you can scan for the best signal – and given you could have a given range of access point names which you  would know about – and a passwords you’d agree on, then is it really that far fetched to imagine a unit regularly checking access points and hooking up to one. Starting to make sense already? I’ve not thought this through, I’m hoping the fellow who’s writing this has.  I can’t get my head around how they’d actually talk to each other AND the outside world…. ok, they can be TCP/IP listeners and handle multiple connections but using serial I could never get the multiple connection bit to actually work. Maybe it’s better when you’re not using serial.

If nothing else I intend to set up 3 of them and follow this project through… lots of potential here I think. Some exceedingly preliminary code is available already to play with…

09:48AM – Not looking good up to now – followed the instructions here.. http://www.esp8266.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=903&p=5581#p5581  pretty much to the letter… checked my locations, blew 2 chips – and… nothing – not talking at 115,200 or 9600 on serial, not showing any thing new up on my network…

tmp3133

8 thoughts on “ESP8266 Mesh Network”

  2. hmm… thats tricky…I have tested on 5 modules (ESP-1 and ESP-3 too) all are fine..it must be on 115200. It is self sustaining and you just need to restart the module. I used ESP “Flash download tool” to burn the code, but that does not change anything….still I am looking onto it and shall revert you back. However, give a link of the programmer (Nodemcu firmware programmer…)that you are using….

    Thanks

    Reply

  4. Before I stop replying any message (the way it is going and people are commenting) I want to see somebody who made it to work. Please try.

    Reply

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