ESP8266 unreliable WiFi connections
Posted: Wed Jul 01, 2015 4:05 pmI’ve been trying to use the ESP8266 WiFi module for some IoT Arduino projects the past couple months. I have 4 ESP units, 1 from Sparkfun, 3 direct from China via eBay, and I can get them all to work with the Arduino but NOT reliably. I’ve flashed all the units with V0.9.5.2 AT Firmware which seems to be the most stable and they work fairly well but just not reliable enough to incorporate into an IoT project.
All the devices appear to be very sensitive to static electricity. When I have the device close to my chair, when I get up I generate a little static and the device goes off line. When this occurs, the device sends out a string of garbage characters to the Arduino and then loses its WiFi connection. I can reestablish the connection by simply going through the appropriate AT command sequence, I don’t have to hardware reset or remove power from the ESP. Even when the Arduino and ESP are not near any static, the ESP occasionally loses its WiFi connection for no reason at all.
I currently have the Arduino code getting a timestamp from the time.nist.gov NTP time server every 5 minutes and if that fails, I assume the ESP has lost the WiFi connection and I then go through a reconnect AT command sequence but this is a real PITA and not a very good solution.
Assuming the problem is not a hardware problem that cannot be corrected with Firmware, is there a better, more stable AT firmware I can use rather than V0.9.5.2 . I’ve tried some older versions and they don’t work any better, some early versions don't work at all, others are so flakey they are unusable.
I really think the ESP8266 device could be a huge player in the IoT arena but in my opinion, until we get a stable reliable AT firmware, the device is simply a novelty, something to experiment or play with.
All the devices appear to be very sensitive to static electricity. When I have the device close to my chair, when I get up I generate a little static and the device goes off line. When this occurs, the device sends out a string of garbage characters to the Arduino and then loses its WiFi connection. I can reestablish the connection by simply going through the appropriate AT command sequence, I don’t have to hardware reset or remove power from the ESP. Even when the Arduino and ESP are not near any static, the ESP occasionally loses its WiFi connection for no reason at all.
I currently have the Arduino code getting a timestamp from the time.nist.gov NTP time server every 5 minutes and if that fails, I assume the ESP has lost the WiFi connection and I then go through a reconnect AT command sequence but this is a real PITA and not a very good solution.
Assuming the problem is not a hardware problem that cannot be corrected with Firmware, is there a better, more stable AT firmware I can use rather than V0.9.5.2 . I’ve tried some older versions and they don’t work any better, some early versions don't work at all, others are so flakey they are unusable.
I really think the ESP8266 device could be a huge player in the IoT arena but in my opinion, until we get a stable reliable AT firmware, the device is simply a novelty, something to experiment or play with.