The Oak by Digistump > Oak Support

Changing from Oak/Particle to generic ESP8266 code with serial and OTA updates

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wickwire:
Hi,


I was a backer for the Oak by Digistump kickstarter campaign, when it happened. I had already bought a Spark Core (now I guess it's called Particle Core) and hadn't done much with it, and for the price tag, once I found out about the Oak, I was on board.

I followed Erik's journey with the Oak and received my order when the time came: a bunch of Oaks, a bunch of Acorns, LCD displays, batteries, 3.3v relays, you name it.

By then, I was already fiddling with ESP8266-12 and ESP8266-01 modules and nodeMCU, which in spite of not having the cloud infra-structure set up, were really cheap to buy and as entertaining and a learning tool as any.

So I tried one Oak, had some troubles connecting it to the cloud, managed to get it going and since I already had stuff going on using MQTT with SSL on the ESP8266, was also going for that - which then lead to this github issue:

https://github.com/digistump/OakCore/issues/71

The Oak was set aside once more, I continued using the ESP8266-12 and nodeMCU, and then this week decided to give the Oak another shot.

After about an hour of failing to set it up with the Particle Cloud, I found an email message from Erik mentioning some possible issues with the particle registration process and the available alternative firmwares that could be loaded on the Oak.

The email contained nog3's instructions on how to set up the ESP8266 Arduino firmware, pretty much like the initial post in this thread, so I set everything up - since I also wanted to try out something other than nodeMCU.

I have to say that the ESP8266 Arduino project on the Oak has been a very positive experience so far, I got my Oak to register and publish timed messages to an MQTT broker online with SSL by updating the new sketch over the air fairly quickly and I'm willing to dedicate more of my time to this alternative. This is something that not even the original Oak firmware has allowed me to do, so far.

I consider myself to be an electronics newbie since my background is in app software development, however I do have an ESP8266 currently controlling on demand power sockets using solid state relays, also with MQTT and SSL but on nodeMCU - and it seems to me that sooner or later I'll be updating that setup code-wise by using ESP8266 Arduino + PubSubClient instead.

That said, and getting back to the Oak and Acorn, would it be fair to say that when compared to the ESP8266-12 dev kit or generic ESP8266-12 module respectively, it would just be extra cash for no real added value at the moment?

I must admit that I didn't check the differences between both hardware implementations, so please feel free to correct me on this and if you also feel that in spite of the noted issues with the cloud platform, this solution is still worth the money extra over the ESP, please note that too.

Finally, I'd like to mention that regardless of any possible issues with the OTA infra-structure with the Oak at the moment, I believe that it will get sorted out with time, as well.

PeterF:
Yeah, because of the age of the ESP8266 core and because we don't have reference point to determine where exactly Erik branched off the ESP8266 Arduino core (so we could work out how to bring as much of it as possible up to date), things can and will not work properly, and we just have to live with it.

Having said that, I'm liking the ESP8266 Arduino OTA stuff more and more, especially since it is actually faster than doing serial uploads... which I thought were reasonably fast already.

As far as hardware, all I can say is the Oak is a solid and reliable board. Beyond that, you need to make your own determination. The regulator is well spec'd, and is reliable. The ESP8266 ("Acorn") is also well made, and even though I haven't looked under the can, I suspect it is better quality than the cheap ESP-12F boards you can find online. You just need to work out if you want to spend ~US$11 for a single Oak (they do get cheaper if you want quantities) or ~US$7 for a D1 WeMos from eBay or (my preference) the ESP8266 Witty modules for ~US$4 on eBay. The reason I like the latter is not because they're cheaper, but because they have the option of the USB serial or not. So you have it when you want to program it, and when you're finished, or need it back in your project, you just remove the module, and there's no power loss from unused USB serial circuitry (which is why I don't like the nodemcu boards for low power ESP8266 stuff). This is where the Oak really shines... if you have it in deep sleep mode, it draws next to no power... as the regulator is a good low quiescent current one, and there is no extra stuff to draw power (you just cut the trace for the power led as provided for), and it's as low as you can get it.

wickwire:
I guess you are right, I have no hardware related complaints whatsoever on the Oak so far, whereas I've had some stresses with ESP8266-12 modules in the past. Granted, I fiddled a lot more with the ESP8266-12 than the Oak, so I guess it will still take me some time, effort and acquired knowledge to properly compare the two solutions.

That said, I'm very pleased with ESP8266 Arduino on the Oak, it's just like you said, it will even be slightly smaller than my ESP8266-12 + GPIO expansion boards and includes micro-USB for power, so having bought 5 Oaks and 10 Acorns on the kickstarter campaign, in no way I feel that the Oaks and Acorns will be shelved for long. Would I have to rely solely on the Particle Cloud and original Oak firmware though, I guess that my happen.

As for buying more modules, for now I'm good working with the ones I still have and will take your comments into account as well when the time comes where I'll have to choose which solution to go for.

I'm just a hobbyist wanting to have some fun with some DIY projects and if I could spend more of my time working on my designs and less time maintaining the modules themselves, that would be the best outcome for me - and by the looks of it, right now it looks like money aside, the Oak + ESP8266 Arduino seems to accomplish that just fine :)

PeterF:
Sorry, I submitted my post before I was finished, so I've finished it and reposted the edit above.

kathblair:
I wanted to say thanks for this info. I  had claimed some oaks a while ago (successfully) on the particle cloud, but couldn't use any libraries. This info let me swap to generic ESP8266, which was awesome!

I also wanted to add a note about the OTA updating - I couldn't see my port, and it turned out that I had to enable IPv6 in my router to be able to see the mDNS sent out by the oak. Before I did that, I couldn't see it even with Bonjour Browser, and afterwards I can and it works to upload code - haven't tried adding additional code with the OTA sketch, but baby steps.

I was also able to upload binaries with the Example > ESP8266WebServer > WebUpdate example, even without mDNS working, if I went to [oak IP]/update and used exported bins, so that would have worked if I couldn't have updated router settings.

Just to avoid having to power on/off the oak when uploading new code, but eh, it's less confusing. I still have my serial port connected for debugging, but I don't need to futz with P2 low/high.

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