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Idea for another module - Easy WiFi?


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#1 H07R0D

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Posted 01 November 2012 - 02:42 PM

So Sparkfun is carrying this new micro platform they're calling the Electric Imp.
https://www.sparkfun.../products/11395

Basically it's a wifi enabled Coretx M3 processor. In the form factor of a standard SD Card.

I haven't got any yet, but I was wondering how feasible it would be to adapt a Go Module shield to accept one of these devices to allow really easy wifi connectivity.

I'm not very good at hardware stuff (yet) so I have no idea if this is even possible, but I wanted to ask around, see what everyone thought.

Cheers.

#2 6677

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Posted 01 November 2012 - 04:36 PM

I believe it can only connect to the electric imp cloud services not the rest of the internet as a whole

#3 Arron Chapman

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Posted 01 November 2012 - 09:57 PM

I believe it can only connect to the electric imp cloud services not the rest of the internet as a whole


It can connect to anything as I understand it, but it's proxied through the electric imp API.

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#4 H07R0D

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Posted 01 November 2012 - 10:19 PM

Thats too bad it's so restricive, I wonder why they thought that was the way to go

#5 Chris Walker

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Posted 03 November 2012 - 07:55 PM

If Electric Imp supports SD SPI commands (necessary for Arduino and such) then it should be possible to interface with it. If it's using SDIO then there are other ways to tackle the issue... Chris

#6 Arron Chapman

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Posted 03 November 2012 - 08:37 PM

Thats too bad it's so restricive, I wonder why they thought that was the way to go


I think they are using a protocol which is smaller than raw requests to make things easier. I'd suspect that in actuality it isn't at all that restrictive.

As I understand the product it's really not intended for hackers but for large companies to use to offer the ability to connect your product (say a water heater) to the internet without having to build the hardware for that themselves, and without having to deal with FCC approval.

If Electric Imp supports SD SPI commands (necessary for Arduino and such) then it should be possible to interface with it.

If it's using SDIO then there are other ways to tackle the issue...

Chris



It's not at all compatible with the SD spec, it only shares a form factor because of the cost of the sockets (cheap), the ease to integrate them into consumer products and the ease of use for the consumer.

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#7 Chris Walker

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Posted 03 November 2012 - 09:18 PM

It's not at all compatible with the SD spec, it only shares a form factor because of the cost of the sockets (cheap), the ease to integrate them into consumer products and the ease of use for the consumer.

Sorry, I wrote that wrong.

Does it use SPI for communication, leveraging the standard SPI pinout used on SD cards? Or something more proprietary?

If it's not using SD/IO, it makes sense that it would be using a custom command set...rather than emulating an SD Card as a mass storage device.

Chris

#8 indimini

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Posted 04 November 2012 - 01:32 PM

Is is possible to just use the Arduino shield for the Imp with the Go's shieldbase - and do something along the lines described in this tutorial? Electric Imp: Serial communication between Imp and Arduino?

#9 Chris Walker

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Posted 04 November 2012 - 04:14 PM

Hi indimini,

Is is possible to just use the Arduino shield for the Imp with the Go's shieldbase - and do something along the lines described in this tutorial? Electric Imp: Serial communication between Imp and Arduino?

Yes, that appears like it should work nicely. We'll need to turn off the debug serial port on the Shield Base (pins D0/D1), but you could just bend those pins to the side for the moment and jumper D7/D8 to D0/D1 on top instead if you wanted to get started immediately.

Chris

#10 Arron Chapman

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Posted 04 November 2012 - 10:04 PM

Does it use SPI for communication, leveraging the standard SPI pinout used on SD cards? Or something more proprietary?

Is is possible to just use the Arduino shield for the Imp with the Go's shieldbase - and do something along the lines described in this tutorial? Electric Imp: Serial communication between Imp and Arduino?


I had to do a bit more reading about these (I'm a bit interested so it's worth it ;) ) .

The device has 6 GPIOs, included in those I/Os is UARTs (yes, plural), I2C, SPI, Analog In, Analog Out and PWM.


Development is done in-browser and in a language called "Squirrel," which is a C-like language with extensions to communicate with the hardware interfaces and the service.


You write the application at their website when the device connects to the internet it downloads and runs that application, so you could use it as a stand alone device (say reading an analog sensor, even toggling some LEDs if you wanted). Or you could program it to take commands via SPI or UART to interact with another uC. The IMP itself has a Cortex-M3 in it, though I didn't find any hard specs on the speed. It's not entirely intended as an add-on for wifi, but also to be a stand alone uC which happens to support coms with other uCs.

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