ESP32 Mesh Station Hardware

Team Compute mesh station
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"Internet of Things" for Everyone

ESP32 based Mesh Stations have low cost and wide support.

esp32_datasheet_en.pdf (1009.6 KB)

Mesh Compute Station (also referred to as "Mesh Station" or just "MS") provide UBIQUITOUS compute power to the environment.

computestation

Some reference implementations of a Basic Mesh Station:

  • MS24a
    Soldered Headers: no
    Battery Connector: yes
    Recommended for working alone

  • MS24b
    Soldered Headers: yes
    Battery Connector: no
    Recommended for adding peripherials

As part of the Citizen Startup program, we are shipping free Basic Mesh Stations to the first few requests from all government regions worldwide.

Personal Console Controllers are low-cost and diverse computing devices that can be deployed ubiquitously by an individual in many different situations, unlike traditional "internet of things" deployments that are centrally owned and operated, Personal Console Controller are owned and operated INDEPENDENTLY by individual citizens through the Personal Console software on their phones.

separate1

From the comfort of their phones, citizens have full control of the physical world by distributing controllers in required locations or carrying controllers with them, individuals can decide what data from their controllers are shared with who and how their controllers make impact on the environment they are in.

console

Like all other Private Cyberspace components, the focus of Personal Console Controller is to remove the Cost and Skill barriers in benefiting from technology.

Personal Console Controllers give your Private Cyberspace sensors and actuators at revolutionary price points and ease of use by combining free yet featureful software (e.g. ESPHome) with low cost yet powerful hardware (e.g. ESP32):

Personal Console Controller Positioning

ESPHome is the default firmware that Personal Console Controller use, other firmwares like Meshtastic can also be used.

ESPHome supports large number of devices, each year we select one as our Personal Console Controller reference implementation.

All Reference implementations are supported worldwide indefinitely (even if they are no longer being manufactured) and can participate in our buy back scheme so some one else can benefit from them.

ESP32 Notes:

  1. There are many ESP32 modules if you are starting out stick to the ones that have already been used by other members.
  2. ESP32's low cost means it only has a single 2.4G radio shred between wifi and bluetooth, since we need to operate both at the same time, we need to be aware of some limitations.

Antenna Pattern

When placing esp32 devices (which normally has a printed meandered inverted-F antenna on the circuit board).

For the strongest possible radio signals, it is important to orient them properly.

esp32
source: katerina & robert

The operation of devices at radio frequencies can be affected by the slightest change in device design and the environment but in general the following placement rule apply to most esp32 devices with printed antenna on the same board.

Assuming you have the printed antenna directly in front of you and we call that the Front of the antenna

Out of the

References

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Personal Console Controller Processors

Currently the following processors are supported by ESPHome (and thus Personal Console Controller):

  • ESP32 and ESP8266 e.g. NodeMCU
  • RP2040 e.g. Raspberry Pi Pico WH

1. ESP32

There are a large number of ultra low cost wifi devices built around the esp8266 and esp32 (e.g. NodeMCUs) chips, making them ideal as Personal Console Controllers.

Both ESP8266 and ESP32 are from Espressif. There are many different esp8266 and esp32 types, below is just a rough comparison between the 2 families.

ESP8266 ESP32 ESP32-S2 ESP32-S3 ESP32-C3 ESP32-C6
Announcement Date 2014, August 2016, September 2019, September 2020, December 2020, November 2021, April
Main processor Tensilica L106 32-bit (up to 160MHz) Tensilica Xtensa 32-bit LX6 (up to 240MHz) (dual core) Tensilica Xtensa 32-bit LX7 (up to 240MHz) Tensilica Xtensa 32-bit LX7 dual core (up to 240MHz) RISC-V 32-bit (up to 160MHz) RISC-V 32-bit (up to 160MHz)
SRAM 160KB 520KB 320KB 512KB 400KB 400KB
ROM 200KB 448KB 128KB 384KB 384KB 384KB
JTAG X ✓ ✓ ? ✓ ✓
Cache 32 KB instruction 64KB 8/16KB (configurable) ? 16KB ?
WiFi Wi-Fi 4 (only up to 72.2Mbps) Wi-Fi 4 Wi-Fi 4 Wi-Fi 4 Wi-Fi 4 Wi-Fi 6
Bluetooth X BLE 4.2 (upgrade to 5.0, with limitations) X BLE 5.0 BLE 5.0 BLE 5.0
Ethernet X ✓ X ? X ?
RTC memory 768B 16KB 16KB 16KB 8KB ?
PMU ✓ ✓ ✓ ? ✓ ?
ULP coprocessor X ✓ ULP-RISC-V ? X ?
Cryptographic Accelerator X SHA, RSA, AES, RNG SHA, RSA, AES, RNG, HMAC, Digital Signature SHA, RSA, AES, RNG, HMAC, Digital Signature SHA, RSA, AES, RNG, HMAC, Digital Signature SHA, RSA, AES, RNG, HMAC, Digital Signature
Secure boot X ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Flash encryption X ✓ XTS-AES-128/256 ✓ XTS-AES-128 XTS-AES-128
SPI 2 4 4 ? 3 ?
I2C 1 2 2 ? 1 ?
I2S 1 2 1 ? 1 ?
UART 2 (one TX only) 3 2 ? 2 ?
SDIO Host 0 1 0 2 0 0
SDIO Slave 0 1 0 0 0 0
GPIO 17 34 43 44 22 22
LED PWM 5 16 8 ? 6 ?
MCPWM 0 6 0 2 0 0
Pulse counter 0 8 4 ? 0 X
GDMA* 0 0 0 ? 6 ?
USB X X USB OTG 1.1 ? Serial/JTAG ?
TWAI 0 1 1 ? 1 ?
ADC 1x 10-bit SAR 2x 12-bit SAR, up to 18 channels 2x 13-bit SAR, up to 20 channels ? 2x 12-bit SAR, up to 6 channels ?
DAC X 2x 8-bit 2x 8-bit ? X X
RMT 1x transmission + 1x reception 8x transmission/reception 4x transmission/reception ? 2x transmission + 2x reception ?
Timer 2x 23-bit 4x 64-bit 4x 64-bit ? 2x 54-bit + 1x 52-bit ?
Temperature Sensor ✓ ✓ ✓ ? ✓ ?
Hall Sensor X ✓ X ? X ?
Touch Sensor 0 10 14 ? X ?

reference:sekcompsci

If price and supply are no concern then esp32 is preferred over esp8266 and esp32-c3.

  1. ESP Modules | Espressif Systems
  2. ESP32 Change CPU Speed (Clock Frequency) – DeepBlue
  3. ESP32 Crypto Benchmark | SSL TLS SSH IPsec TCP

Note Espressif plans to move to using RISC-V cores exclusively in the future, so the current Tensilica Xtensa core based ESP8266 and ESP32 may not be available in the long term. Currently (2024-07-01) esp32-c3 is still NOT mature enough, so esp32 is still preferred.

2. RP2040

RP2040 based system is under trial as a WiFi Controller using the Raspberry Pi Pico.

Only the Raspberry Pi Pico WH version (with WiFi and Header) is currently supported.

Reference:
https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2022/esphome-on-raspberry-pi-pico

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Add-ons

Personal Console Controllers (PCC) can be extended easily by NON-TECHNICAL folks in almost unlimited number of ways with numerous sensors, batteries and actuators.

1. Jumpers

Most PCCs come with headers enabling easy customisations with breadboards and jumper wires.

Add eyes to your Private Cyberspace by attaching camera, add mouth by attaching a speaker, add sensors to capture data to make some income on the Citizen Synergy exchanges!

parts

2. Batteries

PCC3 will charge a plugged in LiPo battery automatically (charging light turned on) until it is full (charging light turned off).

For Power Outage Coverage 120 mAh recommended (new battery provides at least 30 minutes of power under heavy load)

lipo-120mah

For Mobile or Portable Application 2000 mAh recommended (new battery provides at least 24 hours of power under heavy load)

lipo-2000mah

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Personal Console Controller Applications

As a multi-function device Personal Console Controller supports many different applications at once.

Bluetooth Beacon

Personal Console Controller can function like hardware iBeacons easily:

  1. Battery Powered - https://shop.oztralia.com/product/ibeacon-1/
  2. USB Powered - https://shop.oztralia.com/product/ibeacon-2/
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Alternative Hardware

Personal Console Controllers can be easily built using thousands of ready made devices on the market with ESP32 and RP2040 processors.

Some sample header based Personal Console Controllers are:
Expressif - Development Boards | Espressif Systems

  1. Freenove
    https://www.freenove.com/
    https://freenove.aliexpress.com/store/1100032148

  2. Heltec
    https://heltec.org/
    https://www.aliexpress.com/store/3213115

  3. WeMOS Lolin
    https://www.wemos.cc/
    https://lolin.aliexpress.com/store/1331105

1. Simpler Alternatives

There are many simpler alternatives on the market if some features in the reference implementations are not needed.

For example, if USB connection is not required than the Ai-Thinker ESP32-CAM and its clones can be a good alternative to PCC3.

  1. ESP32-CAM
  2. How to use ESP32 Camera Module for Video Streaming and Face Recognition

2. Modular Alternatives

Although the header based reference implementations (PCC3, PCC2 above) can be extended with an almost unlimited number of ways with numerous sensors and actuators, their use of bread boards can be ugly and non user friendly.

Personal Console Controllers can be built easier and looks better with higher cost and less flexible modular systems:

  1. https://m5stack.com/
  2. https://www.rakwireless.com/
  3. Grow Your Idea
  4. Seeed Studio XIAO Series

m5stack

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Innovation Kickstarter

To kickstart the Hardware Innovation in the community, we are giving out a limited number of movement kits (each with a breadboard, 6 wires and a sensor) for FREE to anyone who promise they will assemble it when they purchase either the PCC2 or PCC3.

  1. Gain insight into your environment e.g. who has being visiting your home and at what time ?
    Just hook the movement kit up to a PCC2 and point it to your front door. Any movements will trigger a photo to be taken and sent to your email.

  2. Gain insight into yourself e.g. how many minutes on average you spent in the bathroom ?
    Just hook the kit up to a PCC3 and all movements in the bathroom are tracked. Privacy is assured as there is NO camera on the PCC3.

This kit is just a START!

Keep adding more devices e.g. an ears (microphone), a mouth (speaker), a skin (temperature, humitidy sensor) etc.

Unlike the Cloud solutions YOU OWN it, you control its action and its data, you benefit fully from it.

Small Breadboard

Most breadboard are large in size, we have sourced small breadboards with only 55 holes. Their small size makes them the perfect companion to the small Personal Console Controllers.

breadboard

Model: ZY-55
Body: ABS plastic body - aluminium support plate complete with rubber feet
Colours: Black, Blue, Green, Mustard, Red, Yellow, White
Number of contacts: 55 (5 contacts for 11 files)
Contact pitch: 2.54 mm
Wire diameter: 21-26 AWG 0.4-0.7mm in diameter
Admissible power: 6W
Flow rate: 1A
Contact resistance: 10mΩ
Contact type: Phosphor bronze contacts with nickel plating, for 50.000 insertions tested 36V @ 2A
Operating temperature: -40 ° C ~ 125°C
Dimensions: 20 x 15 x 12mm

Male to Female Wires

jumperwire

Passive Infrared Sensor

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Manufacturing Kickstarter

To kickstart the manufacturing spirit in disadvantaged communities, we are giving out a limited number of soldering kits (each with a soldering iron, 10 pressure sensor boards, 10 headers and enough lead-free solder to manufacture 10 sensors) for FREE to people in disadvantaged situations (e.g. in aged care homes, are long term unemployed etc.) when they purchase either the PCC2 or PCC3.

Soldering Iron

Lead-Free Solder

We know lead-free solder has inferior performance compared to lead solder (e.g. higher melting point leading to component stress etc. etc.) but priority has to be given to the health of beginners who do not have the knowledge nor tools to protect themselves.

Who knows they might like manufacturing after all and will ended up soldering many more than just the initial 10 sensors!

Temp and Pressure sensor

Header

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Personal Console Controller Basic (PCCB)

pstation221

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Personal Console Controller Camera

pcc4

https://discuss.88.io/t/camerastation/1169

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Lolin32 Lite

This board has been selected as Mesh Station 24a reference design for year 2024.

PS21

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ESP32 C3 Zero

Waveshare ESP32-C3 Zero can be cheaper "to manufacture" than MS24a, but do NOT buy them, they only have one core and are not cheaper "to buy" than MS24a.

This board is NOT available in Platform IO Boards and creating our own variant is a massive pain, so the following boards are being tested for compatibility:

Screenshot 2024-06-05 at 11.16.22 am

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Long Range ESP32

ESP32-M1