ESP8266 Community Forum

- Thu Jul 02, 2015 12:53 am #22223

I have not used the CC3000 other than some simple quick tests so I cannot speak to the functionality of that part or series. In general my experience with TI has been rather good. They are not a company that focuses on DIY so I don't expect them to hand hold anyone who purchases a few of their parts. If you buy in volume you should be purchasing from a Distributor and through that distributor you would get support from their FAEs as well as inside contact to TI's engineers. Their e2e forums are also heavily visited by TI's engineers.

With the Internet, the good ol' time where you got visited by your distributor and the manufacturer's FAE is over.

Regarding support from TI, it is in the same deliquescent state as former HP: used to be excellent in the old time when Internet was not existing , but is now going to the dogs.

Please READ this TI's forum thread mentioned above, and you will realize ho bad it is now:
http://e2e.ti.com/support/wireless_conn ... 1/t/253463

For me, the documentation issue is a real red flag warning. It's one thing to copy/use a design and sell to others and it's another to develop and manufacture a product. There are many posts on these forums with some basic questions about the functionality of the ESP8266 that should be answered with a proper datasheet.

You should realize that Espressif is a Chinese company, and that the language (and cultural) barrier is important. Do you often publish your datasheets in Chinese? And compared to TI, they are an extremely small company, and allocating resources for documentation is difficult: been there, done that!

Open Hardware / Open Source is also not common on a cultural point of view for a Chinese company, and I should be thankful to Espressif for following us in this way!

Don't get me wrong, I like the part and I support it but that's far different than me producing a product based on it and releasing it in a commercial environment. Your experience with the CC3200 might be the exception to TI's support. It hasn't been that long since they purchased ChipCon and they were the ones that designed that series. I've used processors, regulators, audio DACs, and many other parts from TI over the years. I've always been able to get support, maybe not always as fast as I would have liked but I've never been ignored.

TI purchased Chipcon more than 9 years ago... In the semiconductor market, this is like the Flintstones

I don't say that TI is not making good products, but I think they are a little overpriced and that their once great support is now a legend rather than a reality.

My experience may be different than others but I at least try to provide first hand information. The OP just asked for our opinions and what we would do and I did. I'm curious though, @martinayotte, @Squonk, ignoring whether this is TI vs Espressif, would you build and release a commercial product based on the ESP8266 modules?

Here is my opinion: I would prefer to go with the ESP8266 and make my product fully CE/FCC/IC certified, as the TI (this is also true for other vendors) WiFi solutions are all too expensive, not reliable, and complete security disasters.

- Thu Jul 02, 2015 12:59 am #22224

We haven't touched on it but the distribution model of the ESP8266 and modules is somewhat unknown, at least it is to me. The design of the ESP-12 module I did a tear down on didn't leave me with an overly impressed feeling. For me if I was to pursue a commercial product I would strongly consider building my product and designing the ESP8266 chip in rather than rely on the produced modules. They claim to be FCC certified but the last time I checked you could not search for them in the database which seemed rather odd to me. For most commercial products you would need to have your product certified so losing the potential FCC license of the module is not the worst thing that could happen. Of course getting certified based on something that already has certification makes the process easier

The business model for the ESP826 is simple: if you want some chips, buy 5K reels directly from Espressif and integrate it into your own products.

Don't rely on these copycat modules from Schenzhen. You want good price? You get good price, but don't ask how... Refurbished / defective Flash SPI chips, 30 ppm instead of 10 ppm recommended crystal, not test, bad PCB quality: you get them all! These are good for DYI / prototypes, but if you are serious about your business, lay the ESP8266 yourself on a board and get them certified yourself.

The ESP8266 chip is a good product, including for commercial use, but all these modules are not, at least they are convenient for us makers.

- Thu Jul 02, 2015 9:35 am #22264

that their once great support is now a legend rather than a reality

Yes, this is especially true since TI started to out-source their engineering to other countries. If I remember while reading their forum about the CC3000 issues, the firmware of this devices was written somewhere in India, and after the out-sourcing contract finished, they have problem with the support. I bet that even TI engineers had problems with their own product.

- Thu Jul 02, 2015 11:33 am #22272 I definitely agree that support in general has gotten worse over the years. I also agree that if I were to sell a commercial product I would design in the ESP8266 rather than rely on the modules. I've done a few designs already and considered just designing the chip in but decided I see how things went first with a design based on the modules.

My point about the datasheet doesn't rely much on the language barrier. If you open a datasheet from almost any semiconductor manufacturer (Analog Devices, Microchip, Linear, TI, etc.) you'll find the structure and detailed information about the chip is rather different than what is available on the ESP8266. For me it seems as though they licensed the core from Tensilica, sent it off to be manufactured and started selling devices. There's nothing at all wrong with that but I believe that if you're going to sell a semiconductor device you need to provide (and know) the details of that device.

Ironically, I feel that it's products like this that have led to the poor support from almost any manufacturer. If you think of it, how can a company survive when almost everyone's focus is first on cost? Hidden company costs, like support, are the first to go when companies are trying to lower costs. Just like you mentioned, lower quality flash devices or crystals are routinely put into products just so the bottom line cost is lower. Even look at the costs of retail products, you can buy a T-shirt at Walmart for what $4? Think of it, how on earth can somebody manufacture something, ship it, stock it, sell it, and still make money?

The TI forum post from 2013 may not depict the best of TI but I still feel if you look in general I think you'll find that not all of the support is like that. At least they had several TI employees respond on that post and to the best of my knowledge nobody from Espressif makes any posts here and I think this forum is the main meeting ground (even though Espressif has their own forum). I personally had a TI engineer call me on a Friday night about an issue I was having with their AM1802 processor. I was working through some issues with some help on the forum and the engineer arranged to call me while we worked together on trying to solve the problem.

But we all have opinions and experiences and they all will be different. I've said it before, but I try to provide first hand information. There is so much information on the internet these days and unfortunately a lot of it can be very misleading.