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by makerdiety 868 days ago
Could I use a $0.02 microcontroller unit that has 48 bytes of RAM to function as the computer for a homemade networked camera package? Like, attaching the MCU to a one dollar WiFi module to begin building an amateur information technology system with a Raspberry Pi single board computer performing as the mainframe server?
1 comments
toast0 868 days ago
The $1 WiFi module probably has a better microcontroller built in... And thus the popularity of the ESP8266...
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makerdiety 868 days ago
I just learned about the ESP8266 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESP8266). Thanks.

So, there's already entire systems on chips? Like the Raspberry Pis and ESP32s?

Are they robust and general purpose though? Can they be integrated into any little home project? Or would you have to design and make your own microchips for your own cases?

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toast0 868 days ago
If you're familiar with the ESP32, the ESP8266 is similar, but less capable and less expensive. As far as I know, the ESP8266 was designed and sold as a wifi add-on chip for a separate microcontroller, but then an SDK came out and some applications don't actually need a separate microcontroller.

Depends on your project if it will work, but I use them around the house to report on temperature and humidity, and I've got one setup on an arcade video converter that I was hoping I could get better output from (but it didn't really work).

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