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Comment by blhack | Hacker News Reader

I am falling in love with wemos's breakout boards for ESP. For instance, this one: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/WeMos-D1-ESP-Wroom-02-ESP826...

This is an ESP8266 breakout/programmer for about ~$3: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/ESP8266-ESP12-ESP-12-WeMos-D...

Absolutely incredible stuff.

Ordered this one coming soon: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/WEMOS-WiFi-Bluetooth-Battery...

And in the realm of awesome breakouts that I'm excited for: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/2pcs-TTGO-LORA-SX1278-ESP32-...

There is some really incredible stuff coming out based on the ESP8266 and ESP32 right now. IMO completely blows all of the normal arduino stuff out of the water.

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I believe that for the US market you are required to use the 915MHz ISM band LORA modules, the one you pointed to works in the 432MHz band.

I'm not sure about that, but adafruit also sells a 432mhz board in the US without any warnings: https://www.adafruit.com/product/3079

Wait, is that last one two ESP32 boards with LoRa and a screen for less than $20? If so, that's amazing, but it's too cheap and I don't see the ESP32.

Well that is what they're advertising, which is absolutely insane in my opinion. I ordered a few of them[1], so I'll let you know when they get here.

It looks like the ESP32 is on the back. Sparkfun also sells an ESP32 that comes in that package: https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13907

What's really interesting going on right now is that adafruit/sparkfun have become radioshack, and aliexpress has become my go to place to find interesting new stuff.

I will say that whenever I'm doing a commercial project[2], however, I still use the more expensive adafruit/fry's/genuine arduino boards.

[1]: I help run a hackerspace in Phoenix, and I do all sorts of maker workshops all over the world, so having a bunch of weird dev boards and parts and stuff is pretty important to me. If those don't end up working, it was worth the $40 to find out.

[2]: Part of my life is helping create one-off experiential advertising installations. Usually these things have a stack of arduinos in them controlling lights, sensors, motors, etc.

It (the ESP32) is right in the middle of the bottom view photo. The actual SX1278 is smaller, on the right. On the bottom, you have the SPI flash for the ESP32.

Ah, interesting, I thought the ESP32 had the same layout as the ESP8266 (processor + flash storage) so I got confused. I guess the ESP8266 storage is embedded in the chip. Very nice breakout, I'll have to look around for a 864 MHz one.

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