Personal Console Controller

"Internet of Things" for Everyone

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.

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.

Device esp8266 esp32
Core Xtensa Single Xtensa Dual
Clock Frequency 80-160 MHz 80-240 MHz
Internal ROM 200 KByte 448 KByte
Internal Instruction RAM 32 KByte 200 KByte
Internal Data RAM 80 KByte 320 KByte
RTC Memory 512 Bytes 16 KByte
External RAM X
802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi HT20 HT40
Bluetooth X Bluetooth 4.2
Flash X
GPIO 17 34
Software PWM 8 channels 16 channels
SPI/I2C/I2S/UART 2/1/2/2 4/2/2/2
ADC 10-bit 12-bit
DAC 8-bit
Deep Sleep 20uA 10uA
SDMMC X
CAN X
Ethernet MAC Interface X
Touch Sensor X
Hall effect sensor X
Secure Boot X
Hardware Encryption X
Working Temperature -40ºC to 125ºC -40ºC to 125ºC

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

  1. https://www.espressif.com/en/products/modules
  2. https://deepbluembedded.com/esp32-change-cpu-speed-clock-frequency
  3. ESP32 Crypto Benchmark | SSL TLS SSH TCP

Note Espressif is moving 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.

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

Add-ons

The reference Personal Console Controller implementations (PC23, PC22 above) can be extended with an almost unlimited number of ways with numerous sensors and actuators by NON-TECHNICAL folks, simply 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

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/

Alternative Hardware

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

Some header based Personal Console Controllers:
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

Simpler

There are many simpler alternatives on the market if some features in the reference implementations (PC23, PC22 above) might not be needed.

For example, if USB connection is not required than the Ai-Thinker ESP32-CAM and its clones can be a good alternative to PC23.

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

Modular

Although the header based reference implementations (PC23, PC22 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

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 PC22 or PC23.

  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 PC23 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 PC22 and all movements in the bathroom are tracked. Privacy is assured as there is NO camera on the PC22.

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

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 PC22 or PC23.

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

Personal Console Controller 2021 (PC21)

The Personal Console Controller 2021 version (PC21) is implemented with the NodeMCU ESP32 and its clones (board: nodemcu-32s).

This model is similar to the official Espressif ESP32-DevKitC.

pstation221

Using the esp32-wroom-32 module with 2 rows of 19-pin headers.

  1. https://nodemcu.readthedocs.io/en/release/nodemcu-lrm/#introduction
  2. https://esphome.io/devices/nodemcu_esp32.html

Personal Console Controller 2021 (PC21) can function like hardware iBeacons easily.

  1. https://shop.oztralia.com/product/pc2021

Personal Console Controller (PC22)

The Personal Console Controller 2022 version (PC22) is implemented with the Freenove ESP32-WROVER-DEV and its clones (board: esp-wrover-kit).

basic_p_station

Using the esp32-wrover-e module with 2 rows of 20-pin headers.

  1. https://github.com/Freenove/Freenove_Ultimate_Starter_Kit_for_ESP32
  2. https://esphome.io/components/esp32_camera.html#configuration-for-wrover-kit-boards
  3. https://community.home-assistant.io/t/how-to-retrieve-images-from-wrover-esp32-camera/450712

Personal Console Controller 2022 (PC22) can stream video and take still images easily.

  1. https://shop.oztralia.com/product/pc2022

Notes:

  1. Running Bluetooth components like Bluetooth iBeacon or Bluetooth Scanner, is NOT supported if the camera running on the PC22, please use PC21 or PC23 for Bluetooth applications.

Personal Console Controller 2023 (PC23)

The Personal Console Controller 2023 version (PC23) is implemented with the ESP32 Wemos Lolin32 Lite and its clones (board: lolin32_lite).

PS21

Using the ESP32-D0WDQ6 module with 2 rows of 13-pin holes (headers supplied but NOT soldered on).

  1. https://www.mischianti.org/2021/07/30/esp32-wemos-lolin32-lite-high-resolution-pinout-and-specs/
  2. https://github.com/chenull/lolinara
  3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9f9vHjQSfQ

The built-in battery charger of the PC23 is very nice, but the provided headers are NOT SOLDERED in. If you do NOT need onboard battery try use the PC21 above (may be with a power bank) so you can attach cables to already soldered headers of the PC21 easily.

Note this is the cheaper "Lite" version

Available Pins Standard version Lite version
3V3 2 1
5V 1
GND 5 1
GPIO 21 21

PC23 is very small and low cost. If you need headers get the PC21, if need camera get the PC22 (which also has headers), but they do NOT have a battery port.

1. Pin-outs

lolin-esp32-lite-pinout

Schematic:
sch_lolin32_lite_v1.0.0.pdf (86.5 KB)

2. Batteries

PC23 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

Personal Console Controller 2023 (PC23) can function like hardware iBeacon scanner easily.

  1. https://shop.oztralia.com/product/pc2023