So, I’m not usually one for solar lights, ever! But I have a wall, a big wall that needs some lights.
My only option at this point is, something that does not require a cable. So I got hold of some pretty decent solar lights, that don’t look to bad and also seem to last forever. They are powered off a singe 18650.
My plan is to drop a ESP01 inside it, and be able to switch the lights on and off. I would need to do this for each light obviously.
Right now, my biggest issue is runtime with the ESP01 on battery. I was looking at deep sleep and this appears to be the way to do it, however, I have no way or method to wake the ESP up. The only way I could do it is say, stay awake after sunset or xx:xx time of day and sleep at sunride or xx:xx time of day. I have also read that the ESP01 does not support the timed sleep mode function for time of day, only the ESP32.
Another issue I have is the ESP01 and the fully charged 18650 is 4.2v, more then the required 3.3. I have got a ESP01S single channel relay board that has a 5v input that seems to be pretty tolerant with voltage below 5v, but I guess that relay would draw a whack of current to drive when turning on the lights.
If I could somehow get my head around this i’m sure I could jimmy something up.
Anyone good with this stuff and have any ideas?