Show HN: Micro web framework for low-resource systems – live example on ESP8266

Show HN: Micro web framework for low-resource systems – live example on ESP8266(ureq.solusipse.net)

146 points by solusipse 10 years ago | 40 comments

droithomme 10 years ago |

Whoa nelly! This web site is running entirely on an 8266, responds instantly, and is handling the kiss of death associated with HN linking with no problem. That is amazing.

canow 10 years ago | |

this kind of thing gives me hope that Google could be replicated on a low budget

a3n 10 years ago | | |

I guess, when they come out with microengineers.

ausjke 10 years ago |

this is indeed probably the best low-cost wifi chip out there, most of the esp8266 modules are still acting as an add-on module for other host-cpus(e.g. arduino) though, wish it can run something like freertos or contik on its own so it can be a IoT sensor standalone(maybe it's there already, had not checked it in the last few months).

TI had similar products but it's too expensive, in that sense IoT hardware has to be 'made-in-china'

tdicola 10 years ago | |

It can run FreeRTOS, the Espressif SDK has an example and there's even a nice open source project around it too: https://github.com/SuperHouse/esp-open-rtos

jerrysievert 10 years ago | |

there are a couple of javascript environments running on it, as well as lua, so it has managed to turn into something that can easily be IoT ready.

nmjohn 10 years ago | |

There is a firmware to run lua directly on the esp8266: https://github.com/nodemcu/nodemcu-firmware

ayuvar 10 years ago | | |

I have been messing with nodemcu on an ESP8266 ebay board for the last few weeks. It was initially really weird to have a REPL on an embedded system but I'm already missing it when I go back to other platforms.

foxylad 10 years ago | |

And ESP8266 is now supported by the Arduino IDE. See https://github.com/esp8266/Arduino

ausjke 10 years ago | |

I was told the core team of esp8266 are all ex-broadcom wifi designers.

GeorgeHahn 10 years ago | | |

Doesn't look like it [1]. Certainly a skilled team though!

[1] https://twitter.com/EspressifSystem/status/65372641801515827...

jerrysievert 10 years ago |

i am continuously impressed by the esp8266. i have been building things on and off with them for the last couple of months, and bought enough of them to give out.

at less than $2 each, they really are amazing.

100timesthis 10 years ago | |

I bought one as well although I didn't do anything yet, would you mind share what you did/recommend doing? I was thinking to make a temperature sensor monitoring device, as I have an arduino that is doing the job now

jerrysievert 10 years ago | | |

a temperature sensor was actually my first use of it (and i will continue to build a couple as remote sensors) - basically, i've been adding more and more sensors just to see how much it could take.

now, i'm having to build out PCB's to support everything (including the voltage regulators to 3.3v and 5v), as i've outgrown breadboards.

dnr 10 years ago | | |

I've made motion sensors (still slightly buggy) and a small circuit to start my laundry machine remotely. I might do temp/humidity monitoring for a specialized application at some point.

placeybordeaux 10 years ago | |

Where do you get them for $2?

jerrysievert 10 years ago | | |

aliexpress.com

zapt02 10 years ago |

For someone wanting to tinker but not being great at electronics project, what is the easiest way to: - Play with the chip (testing interfaces, deploying code etc) - "Deploy" it (ie. connect it to ground power, via 230v-USB connector or similar?

jerrysievert 10 years ago | |

buy a huzzah from adafruit, it breaks everything out, and is much more tolerant than the board itself.

couple it with a small breadboard and an mb102, and you're good to go.

zapt02 10 years ago | | |

Thanks!

foxylad 10 years ago | |

Onthe software side, the Arduino programming environment now supports the ESP8266. This makes it very easy to start playing.

One hint - to program, reboot with the programming pin (GPIO0) grounded, but take it back to 3.3V before you start programming. That took me a couple of hours to figure out.

rasz_pl 10 years ago |

>running at 80Mhz

160MHz http://www.esp8266.com/viewtopic.php?p=8107#p8107

also "Rebooting every 400 users" doesnt sound all that stable :)

solusipse 10 years ago | |

This reboot is forced, we had over 3k requests with no hanging of whatsoever. It just helps when traffic is huge. This particular chip (serving linked website) is running at 80Mhz.

mianos 10 years ago |

Plus, running micropython this board rocks. Imagine a repl on the USB serial interface. My branch is rock solid posting millions of messages from python to a webserver.

mafuyu 10 years ago |

Awesome work! Looks like there's a great community growing around the esp8266. I'll need to check it out myself sometime.

Retr0spectrum 10 years ago |

This is very impressive.

solusipse 10 years ago | |

Thank you!

tdicola 10 years ago |

Wasn't this posted yesterday? I swear I saw it in the RSS feed.

edit: Yeah, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10369608 Weird, what's a repost invite?

solusipse 10 years ago | |

It's explained here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9806904

dang 10 years ago | |

We've been running a series of experiments to try to mitigate the randomness of what achieves liftoff from /newest. We started working on this because many users complained that good stories were getting ignored, and we looked closely and found that this was true. Below are links to a few comments I've posted about this over the last year, if anyone's interested. The next experiment will probably be to add a profile setting that people can turn on to let the software repost their story at a good time, rather than having to get an email invitation—although to judge from the feedback we've been getting, people seem to like the emails.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9828818

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8790134

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9866140

tdicola 10 years ago | | |

Cool! Thanks for working on making interesting stories more visible.