Choice of board

Questions and discussion about The WiPy 1.0 board and CC3200 boards.
Target audience: Users with a WiPy 1.0 or CC3200 board.
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hotcore
Posts: 6
Joined: Wed Jun 15, 2016 9:43 am

Choice of board

Post by hotcore » Wed Jun 15, 2016 1:08 pm

Hi guys,

pondering over what board I will buy, I thought about WiPy, Esp8266 and Raspberry Pi 3.
Being really a "software" kind of person, I think experimenting with servo's etc. is not my thing.

What I do like about WiPy:
1. experimenting with simple sensors and Wifi is possible
2. low energy consumption of the WiPy.
3. MicroPython is awesome (also no OS needed, which gives a lot of overhead)
4. lots of IoT possibilities
5. excellent documentation of WiPy and MicroPython

Question 1: Would there be any reason to not go for the WiPy?

When I would buy the WiPy, I think I need:
1. WiPy itself
2. expansion board
3. class 10 16GB SD card
4. a case

Question 2: do I need to buy more stuff to get things going?

Question 3: is there a central place with IoT related projects / examples on the WiPy

TIA,
hotcore

markxr
Posts: 62
Joined: Wed Jun 01, 2016 3:41 pm

Re: Choice of board

Post by markxr » Wed Jun 15, 2016 1:44 pm

Raspberry Pi is not a microcontroller.

While the RaspberryPi is great, it is not a microcontroller, this means it is a self-hosting system - you can compile, build etc, stuff on the Pi itself without another machine.

This is not true of the other boards, even if it's technically possible to edit the Python code on the device - I still wouldn't recommend it for normal dev work

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deshipu
Posts: 1388
Joined: Thu May 28, 2015 5:54 pm

Re: Choice of board

Post by deshipu » Wed Jun 15, 2016 1:54 pm

If you are mostly interested in programming and not on building things, I think you will be much happier with a Raspberry Pi. As written above, it's a complete computer, and offers much greater possibilities for your programs in terms of languages, resources, debugging tools and learning materials available. It stills lets you connect and play with electronics, so you can get your feet wet slowly.

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Roberthh
Posts: 3667
Joined: Sat May 09, 2015 4:13 pm
Location: Rhineland, Europe

Re: Choice of board

Post by Roberthh » Wed Jun 15, 2016 6:39 pm

Looking at the initial questions, I cannot give a good advice. If programming flexibility it most important, then Raspi is it. If Low Power, fast start-up and possible battery operation is more important, the WiPy or one of the other micros are the better choice.
But they all do not cost too much. You can try both, like many of us here have all possible boards to try them, and at the end you get the one best suited for a special task. The common denominator then is MicroPython.
Best Regards

hotcore
Posts: 6
Joined: Wed Jun 15, 2016 9:43 am

Re: Choice of board

Post by hotcore » Thu Jun 16, 2016 7:37 am

Thx for all replies!
For now I think the WiPy is closest to what I like.
Maybe later I'll try the RPi.

rodrigob
Posts: 15
Joined: Sun Aug 30, 2015 7:41 am

Re: Choice of board

Post by rodrigob » Fri Jun 17, 2016 2:54 pm

Also
> excellent documentation of WiPy
I would not quite agree. There is some documentation, but it is not great.

Another big difference (which I noted when porting code from RPi to Wipy), is that the Wipy processor is much slower than RPi; so if computation speed is part of the equation, this should be taken into account.

dwight.hubbard
Posts: 38
Joined: Mon May 16, 2016 6:35 pm

Re: Choice of board

Post by dwight.hubbard » Fri Jun 17, 2016 6:45 pm

A few things about the wipy that weren't mentioned here.
  • The wipy does not support floating point. while the esp8266 does.
  • The wipy boards don't have onboard power, so using it without the expansion board requires an external power supply.
  • The wipy firmware does not get frequent updates. The current release firmware is from February and is quite old.
hotcore wrote:Hi guys,

pondering over what board I will buy, I thought about WiPy, Esp8266 and Raspberry Pi 3.
Being really a "software" kind of person, I think experimenting with servo's etc. is not my thing.

What I do like about WiPy:
1. experimenting with simple sensors and Wifi is possible
2. low energy consumption of the WiPy.
3. MicroPython is awesome (also no OS needed, which gives a lot of overhead)
4. lots of IoT possibilities
5. excellent documentation of WiPy and MicroPython

Question 1: Would there be any reason to not go for the WiPy?

When I would buy the WiPy, I think I need:
1. WiPy itself
2. expansion board
3. class 10 16GB SD card
4. a case

Question 2: do I need to buy more stuff to get things going?

Question 3: is there a central place with IoT related projects / examples on the WiPy

TIA,
hotcore

hotcore
Posts: 6
Joined: Wed Jun 15, 2016 9:43 am

Re: Choice of board

Post by hotcore » Sun Jun 19, 2016 5:32 pm

Thx again!
Today the choice was made by my family, because they gave me a RPi3 for father's day: :D

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