First, I'd like to congratulate the community for the wonderful support over the last 4 years. For those who don't know. Ezrobot Inc is 4 years old starting in November! I'm extremely proud of the community who supported my dream of connected robots, even before IoT was a thing. To complement the huge thank you to the community, we have open sourced the communication wifi module! This is an important gift to the community by giving customizable control over the firmware of you ezb v4.
The new software project includes a downloadable package containing source code, compiler and documentation. All available on the new software page here: http://www.ez-robot.com/EZ-Builder/Open-IoT-Wifi
From me personally, thank you and enjoy your gift! :) we have a broad future of connected devices to create. Now get to it, gang!
Advantages of the Open IoT Wifi:
* Edit, compile and upload custom firmware to the EZ-B v4.
* Change TCP ports for commands and video stream.
* Custom webserver branding and logo.
* Add custom JSON IoT listeners.
* Chainable by using one EZ-B as Access Point for other EZ-B's and PC to connect to.
* Upgrade to the latest EZ-Robot Wifi features.
* Call-back for the EZ-B to call home no matter what network connection.
* Change default TCP/IP Address for AP mode.
The new software project includes a downloadable package containing source code, compiler and documentation. All available on the new software page here: http://www.ez-robot.com/EZ-Builder/Open-IoT-Wifi
From me personally, thank you and enjoy your gift! :) we have a broad future of connected devices to create. Now get to it, gang!
Advantages of the Open IoT Wifi:
* Edit, compile and upload custom firmware to the EZ-B v4.
* Change TCP ports for commands and video stream.
* Custom webserver branding and logo.
* Add custom JSON IoT listeners.
* Chainable by using one EZ-B as Access Point for other EZ-B's and PC to connect to.
* Upgrade to the latest EZ-Robot Wifi features.
* Call-back for the EZ-B to call home no matter what network connection.
* Change default TCP/IP Address for AP mode.
Perhaps I should try this when I get home tonight. Have a pickit at home so guess I should jump on it lol.
I guess I need to look for the Pickit I lost some 3 or 4 years ago and thought I'd never need again...
Thank you for this!
Hey DJ,
Thnxs a lot ! This is really a nice gesture ! Btw, I joined the community in the EZ-Robot early days and I'm still enjoying it everyday. I think that we can make a statement and say that EZ-Robot was/is a milestone in robot development for many of us. I hope there are many more years to come !
Greetz, Philip
Happy Birthday ! and congratulations
Happy Birthday!
@Ahlonnae you can't make "Alan"... it is not 3d printable. ... Inmoov is however ready when you are... Curious why did you post this in this thread? Your post doesn't seem to have anything with the theme of the thread......?
This is fantastic, more connectivity is a great feature! I cant wait to see what everyone comes up with.
@jstarne1
Where have you been my friend? Haven't seen you post in a while.
Alan
Back to this old thread, but on topic.....
Will the v4.x/2 also support this? (obviously selecting a different chip in the PIC tool). I am beginning to think about doing more than changing default SSIDs and IP addresses, which is what I have done so far, but want to know if I will be able to duplicate the work if I upgrade my EZ-Bs.
Alan
i had the same question in my mind, so far the customization is possible:
does the next v4.x/2 uses a BlueGiga WF121 chip or a BlueGiga BGSCRIPT chip ?
No, the v4.x/2 does not use BlueGiga. The /2 uses a custom RTOS written in C with custom everything, which is much more powerful and faster, etc... You may recall a thread that you had been engaged in last week about threading where i explained in further detail the /2 and how it differs from the BlueGiga /0 and /1.
The BlueGiga was a neat module that helped us get ten of thousands of the first v4's out the door. Since then, we recognized the limitations of their product and other similar hardware wifi modules and decided to create our own. Creating our own gives us full control over everything - including the bootloader for firmware updates.
The /2 is 99% C and 1% assembler - and uses an STM32 chip similar to the EZ-B v4.x chip (bottom board). The WiFi module is Broadcom and it's manufacturer mac address range is registered to MX Chip.
Are you leaving a door open for customization like uploading code/scripts to the controller to allow some autonomy (without a PC) like in the IOT scenarios ?
I don't have anything in mind, but, you open the IOT door with the BlueGiga chip, so the beast is out...
Haha - yes. I haven't determined how to do it yet. The compiler that we use for the RTOS is IAR Embedded, which is $5,000 USD - so not great for anyone but a corporation to use. This is because the broadcom libraries and the RTOS are both for that compiler.
I'm considering a way to have a "lite" EZ-Script that runs directly on the ez-b. Or, an add-on that connects to the v4.x/2 which you can code in arduino. There's a few options to bounce around.
The new EZ-B v4.x/2 handles things so dramatically different than how bluegiga intended. There's huge circular dma buffers on the tcp/ip stack and comm i/o between the wifi stack and ez-b. As well as things like identify broadcasts, more features in the web server, telnet server, etc... If i run out of memory on the /2, we may release an add-on that allows arduino programming.
There's also the USB module that we're launching with the /2. It allows you to connect the EZ-B directly to a PC via USB.
ouch ! if is like that it's not friendly ...
It reminds me PICs a few years ago, everything was so expensive, difficult,closed to the amateur/curious user,
That is one of the reasons why Arduinos became a plague, so easy that a caveman can do it.
Regarding the new module, it handles the same things wifi, http server, routing to the EZB hardware (camera,ports)
from a perspective of EZB hardware there is nothing new, but you mention performance issues so i'm assuming wifi communications will be more stable ?
What's new has been stated sooooo many times
Summary:
As for the previous generation of ez-b's wifi stability, i've never experienced any issues - ever. I travel around the world with ez-robots and there's tens of thousands of them - unless someone is misunderstanding that wifi is a radio frequency and they're...
a) surrounding the ez-b in grounded wires, metal plates, etc
b) using a defective or buggy wifi module on their laptop
c) not providing enough current to the ez-b, or drawing too much current from the ez-b due to limited electronic experience/knowledge
d) in a very saturated wifi area and not using the wifi scanner included in the FAQ to identify a free channel.
e) not reading the massive amount of information on available using google to understand G 20mhz networking and what channels over lap
f) enabling N mode without understanding N is the worst for saturated network areas and increases latency
g) flooding the data channel with toooooo many commands per second because the first gen ez-b v4 doesn't have as much buffer memory for tcp segments, etc..
There's no reason outside of those reasons why the wifi of the ezb would ever disconnect.
The new ez-b has a stronger signal, but it doesn't fix lack of knowledge
This has me excited, I am tried of going to our schools solving these issues.