ESP8266 Community Forum

Hi,

I was chatting with someone yesterday who happens to work at TI, and he suggested I stay away from the ESP-8266 because it may not be compatible with some WiFi access points. I got the feeling that he wasn't speaking from actual knowledge, but I thought I'd reach out to the community to find out peoples experience. Has anyone encountered problems getting an ESP-12 to connect to an access point that works just fine with laptops or phones? I ask about the ESP-12 simply because that's the module I'm currently using, and planning on using in my own custom PCB.

Thanks,
-- John

Hi John,

Of course, there are maybe bugs with ESPs that needs to be resolved.
But let me give you my testimony of something I've faced last year when I started IoT projects that needs a WiFi connectivity :
At that time, ESPs didn't exist yet. All WiFi modules were way much too expensive, the lowest one I've found was the TI CC3000 which was around US$25. I've purchased one. I've started doing development, started doing stress tests. It didn't took a week when I became frustrating : those CC300 from TI (a company that I've confidence with, since I'm in this industry since over 35 years) wasn't reliable at ALL ! it was freezing after 4 hours of HTTPServer stress tests. Digging on the Net, I've found that even SparkCore had the same problem, digging TI forums, I've found that the issue was know since many months. The TI answer to all those post was simply silence, until, after a year, their staff finally admit the problem and simply answered that people need to switch to newer CC3200 design !!!
Horrible answer for all those who commit resources and money to the previous CC300 !!!
(BTW, almost all CC3000 designs, at least software ones were out-sourced to India ... But TI still responsible for those mistakes, if it is really the reasons for such incredible)
Shame on TI !!!
I will never purchase any chip from them !!!
So, conclusion : I don't know who your contact, if he is a salesman or an engineer, but next time you meet him, tell him about this story, tell him to search on the Net about this issue, TI has really fall deep thru these past years ...
(BTW, remember that ESPs are < $3, while CC300 still today > $25)

in 8 months I've not yet had any problems with ESP-01s or ESP-12s connecting to router APs, or with accessing them from PCs when the ESP8266 is an AP.

At under $5 each, and with this great community, there's no reason not to play with ESP8266. I started out as a skeptic, but am now pretty impressed with the ESP8266.

Like Martin, I got a Spark Core, but haven't used it much. I generally like TI, but it seems they laid an egg with the CC3000.

Thanks martinayotte and kenn. That's very helpful.