Going to try out doing my first project and wanted ask a question. I know that ESP32-C6 was recently made official regarding support, but does that support extend to dev kits like ESP32-C6-DevKitC-1 or just the ESP32-C6 module itself?
I just don’t want to accidentally assume that the dev kits are supported and get into something that will end up being a bad, frustrating first experience.
The entire project is just to use the dev kit and hook it up to a SEN66 for air quality, VOCs, etc… over wifi.
It’s just one of the boards I have on hand. I don’t buy anything from Aliexpress. Mouser, Digikey or it doesn’t happen. The board I referenced is the official dev board put out by Espressif. Part of the problem I was having was determining if the posts discussing problems were due to the model not being supported or if there were other flaws as the official support is so recent. Which is why I asked. The posts you linked to are starting in 2022. That’s 4 years of updates. Again, part of why I asked about the board. If C6 just doesn’t work with ESPHome, that’s the information I am looking for. Not sure why people are having such trouble with 5V and 3.3V, it’s not that hard. Also, as I pointed out, going with wifi, not trying to do zigbee with it.
Not sure what you mean by more, “normal.” If hooking a sensor up to an esp32 variant to plug into Home Assistant is not normal then I am missing something about the entire point of ESPHome it seems?
Thanks, my only other experience with ESPHome was a bit iffy (a premade device that as of the latest updates uses features that have been made obsolete and removed from the project as it turned out) as they seem to make rather sweeping changes in the updates and trying to sift through what works or doesn’t based on the most up to date versions vs what may be actual hardware level issues has been less than straight forward.
The modules are designed for large scale manufacturing directly onto custom printed circuit boards.
The DevKits are a module plus a few common components (eg LED, USB interface) and with the signals extended out to pins which can be placed in a breadboard.
As you noticed, a lot of the technical support threads in this community have got rather dated. The developers now use github for any problem reports/issues, so doing a search in Issues · esphome/esphome · GitHub (both Open and Closed issues) is going to give the most current situation.
And yes, there have been significant improvements made to ESPHome recently which have broken older components, generally requiring some change to yaml code … and it can be difficult for new people to understand the (often cryptic) instructions given in the documentation.
I personally haven’t yet used the C6 or an air quality sensor; but I expect they should be straight-forward.
If you want to learn ESPHome programming the ESP8266 boards are ideal.
For simple projects, one sensor + one ESP, I prefer to keep it simple - ESP8266. My Go-to board is the Wemos D1 Mini. Less than $5 each even on Amazon.
If I need more GPIO pins I add an MCP23008 or MCP23017 (8 and 16 GPIOs respectively). The programming is ridiculously easy.
If you need Bluetooth or hardware UART, then it is not a simple project and an ESP32 is needed.
I have tested SEN6x with normal esp32 and esp32-c3 dev boards and I have no reason to think it wouldn’t work with c6 as well. Remember to add pullup resistors, bare SEN66 doesn’t have them on board.
It’s not that simple. People usually pick the c6 because it has Zigbee, Thread, and/or Matter (and they want those to work).
I once bought a c3 board (because it was cheaper, and I wasn’t paying close attention). It was not supported by the application I was using (BT proxy) at the time. It was an exercise in frustration for 30 minutes until I figured out I had the wrong board for what I wanted to do.
As others have said if you are just doing something basic (sounds like you are) you should be fine.
Thanks for the info. I did check and both the SEN66 and esp32-c6 dev board are listed in the ESPHome github repo. It’s just an I2C connection between the two. It is basically just the Apollo AIR-1 but with the updated, less power hungry, more accurate (for what that is worth with everything but the C02 and Particles) SEN66 vs SEN55.
Picked the C6 mainly because it can use x509 for wifi.
I should have added this is not my first time with microcontrollers, just my first time using ESPHome from scratch with one.
My other and first experience with it was for a ceiling fan controller that hung a large part of it’s functionality on the custom component (the thing that had just been removed as I finally found out), so it was a bit of an annoying first experience.
I tried to run it connected to a DS18b20 temperature sensor in a freezer.
I also had it running a BT proxy.
the board itself was outside of the freezer so there should have been no interference with the wifi signal and I’ve got plenty of wifi access point coverage. But for some reason I couldn’t get the board to stay connected to wifi. it would drop out for several random hours per day.
I removed the BT proxy config for the board and so I was just using it for wifi for communication for the temp sensor. But the wifi reliability stayed being a major issue.
eventually I totally reconfigured the board as a zigbee end device (no wifi or BT) with the temp sensor and ever since then it’s been rock solid.
as I said I only tried one board so your mileage may vary.
Radio Frequency signals get reflected by metal and absorbed by water, so my guess is that your wi-fi signal may have been distorted by echos reflectected from the sheet metal walls of the freezer. Bluettooth signals were probably also getting some distortion. But because we can’t see radio signals it is only a guess
Zigbee uses less transmit power, even using the same frequency as wi-fi … so maybe this reduced the “loudness” of the signal, allowing the C6 to make better sense of it. FYI, I have seen other forum threads where reducing the wi-fi transmit power has actually improved wi-fi connections. Go figure !
Those are generally for different boards and ones that generally have inadequate voltage regulators. Lowering the output power (of the RF amplifier) reduces the current draw enough to allow the regulator to keep up.
I agree. Some people believe that high tx can somehow suffocate router, but I personally doubt that.
Ok, if antenna circuit is completely wrong, other problems are possible.
