Category: Raspberry Pi

raspberry pi pico w and micropython 1.19.1 nightly — initial status report

whbeebe

When the Raspberry Pi Foundation released the Pico W with WiFi for US$6, I picked one up from Adafruit (they limited to one/customer). I have it and I’ve been working with MicroPython nightlies for the W ( https://micropython.org/download/rp2-pico-w/ ). Features seemed to be working until I tried to bring up my “generic” WiFi server on the board (see /2022/06/20/micropython-v-1-19/ ). Everything seemed to work at first, until I went looking for the board’s access point SSID, and couldn’t find it. Instead I see what is the WiFi chip’s SSID, which with my example is PICO386B. I only see this if I enable the network as an access point, or wlan = WLAN(network.AP_IF). It doesn’t matter what SSID/ESSID I want to configure the access point as, I only see the chip’s default access point. Why would the WiFi chip have an access point?

The Raspberry Pi Pico W is equipped with the Infineon CYW43439 ( https://www.infineon.com/cms/en/product/wireless-connectivity/airoc-wi-fi-plus-bluetooth-combos/cyw43439/ ) single chip combination with 2.4 GHz WiFi and Bluetooth 5.2. Up to this point only the WiFi is enabled. Future Bluetooth support is unknown at this time.

CYW43439 block diagram

The block diagram of the CYW43439 calls out two ARM processors; a Cortex M3 for WiFi and a Cortex M4 for Bluetooth. I can only hypothesize at this point, but the M3 is powerful enough to act as an access point with its own self-generated SSID. I can only assume without better documentation that that is what is happening. Although I can’t access it as an access point, I can configure it to join my home WiFi network, and it’s accessable that way.

In the mean time I’m working with the RP2040’s Programmable I/O (PIO) support. That’s an interesting feature that helps the RP2040 punch well above its weight compared to other MCUs.

climate change note book — day 5

whbeebe1 Comment

From The Guardian:

France, Spain and other western European nations braced for a sweltering weekend that is set to break records and sparked concern about forest fires and the effects of climate change.

Temperatures already nudged over 40C (104F) in parts of France on Friday.

The weather on Saturday will represent a peak of a June heatwave that is in line with warnings from scientists that such phenomena will now hit earlier than usual because of climate change.

Temperatures are due to relent slightly from Sunday, with thunderstorms forecast in parts of France and elsewhere in Europe.

But French state weather forecaster Meteo France said June temperature records had already been beaten in 11 areas on Friday and could reach as high as 42C in some areas on Saturday.

In Spain, forest fires burned nearly 9,000 hectares (22,240 acres) of land in the north-west Sierra de la Culebra region on Friday, forcing about 200 people from their homes, regional authorities said.

Link: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/18/europe-heatwave-france-braces-for-record-breaking-temperatures-as-spain-battles-forest-fires

Today’s Orlando weather:

  • Morning low at 6:00 am was 80° F
  • Today’s high at 2:00 pm was 95° F
  • Humidity was 50%
  • No rain
  • Mostly hazy conditions

Today’s weather was peculiar. This was supposed to be a big rain day, with all three iOS apps I have on my iPhone (Apple Weather, Dark Sky, and Hello Weather) forecasting rain starting at 2 pm. The problem with that forecast is it was wrong, at least in my neighborhood. The skies grew cloudy, then overcast, and I could hear the occasional bit of thunder in the far distance, but we never got any rain. I even had apps saying we were getting rain, yet when I went outside to look, it was dry. The temperature (thankfully!) did drop, by ten degrees by 5 pm.

I’m to the point where I’m purchasing components to build several small weather stations for my back yard, tied to a central station in the house with LoRa, so I can have greater accuracy with local weather forecasting. I’ve come quite a way with MicroPython and ESP-IDF on Espressif boards, pushed there in part because I can’t purchase any Raspberry Pies from anyone. I’ve discovered that I can write sophisticated applications in Python or C++ for those boards, which are much smaller than a Raspberry Pi and consume a lot less power. Those boards, and specifically, those chips on those boards, are still available. I’m really disappointed in the Raspberry Pi Foundation. The Foundation’s original “promise” to be there for the experimenter is garbage.