ESP8266 Community Forum

Folks,

I have seen the "ESP8266 DevKit Module V4 with CP2102 UART" ....
https://www.bitsbox.co.uk/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=302_312&products_id=2869&zenid=v3d90b9i5pp2cbokr95jdvflj3
... but I have been unable to figure out exactly what it is. Is it the Tx/Rx system that gives wireless capability to an Arduino, or does it have enough IO and processing capacity to handle some simple signals in a stand-alone environment?

I have in mind a project intended for two elderly next-door neighbours. Each lives alone, and they do not see each other every day. It is not unknown for an old person to fall down the stairs or have an attack of some kind, and lie in their house for days before anybody tumbles to it.

My project is for a system that will alert the next door neighbour if there is no activity during a period that would normally guarantee it. If this does not bring a response within a few minutes, (reset button is not pressed), the unit would signal further afield to a family member, preferably via SMTP, or possibly by email. This assumes proximity to an Internet wireless router.

The sensor could be a light beam across the kitchen (or toilet) door, a PIR sensor, etc., but it would use very few IO pins - possibly just one, and the entire system would have a very low bandwidth requirement. In fact, it could sleep most of the time.

The entire system would consist of one module per house, and could feasibly grow to more than two houses. Each module would have a sensor input, a reset button and a beeper for alerting people. Modules would have to communicate with each other, and with a WiFi router. It would not need a keyboard or display, as setup could be effected by plugging a PC into the USB interface.

Do you think this entire project could be reaslised with the board above, or would it need to be coupled with an Arduino MCU?

Oh, well, nobody has hazarded an answer to just about the simplest question anybody can ask - what is it? - for almost four days now. Looking through other people's questions, I see that question after question has no answer, some of them, days old. One that did have an answer said "The code is all wrong." Very helpful!! Bravo to the genius who made that answer.

As I will almost certainly be needing help with this project, I guess this is not a chip I should be looking at - the forum seems to have died (if it was ever alive)

There is usually a few very active people that answer questions, that seems missing here.

You have a very good project idea, maybe even a good product idea, might pitch this kind of monitoring to the alarm system people, as they already have the capability to do it.

Sure you can use an ESP8266 to do this, it can get input from sensors and can use the wifi to send messages. Here is a simple idea, have the ESP8266 use AP mode and change the ESSID of the AP from "ALLISWELL" to "CHECK ON 7146" and now anyone can scan for WIFI AP's and see if one is broadcasting a "distress" call.

Blikin wrote:Folks,

I have seen the "ESP8266 DevKit Module V4 with CP2102 UART" ....
https://www.bitsbox.co.uk/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=302_312&products_id=2869&zenid=v3d90b9i5pp2cbokr95jdvflj3
... but I have been unable to figure out exactly what it is. Is it the Tx/Rx system that gives wireless capability to an Arduino, or does it have enough IO and processing capacity to handle some simple signals in a stand-alone environment?

Yes that DevKit module combines both an Arduino compatible processor and Wifi, so on its own you could program it with Arduino to do what you describe.