ESP8266 Community Forum

torntrousers wrote:Or try this for a really small USB powered ESP12 - https://github.com/HarringayMakerSpace/usb-esp

This is my point though - you get the initial convenience of a dev board but then you cannot use it as a low power final product unless you butcher it (which I have seen people do, for mercy's sake). Obviously something not powered from batteries is fine, slap as much peripheral on it as you like. It's like those dev boards that come with battery/lipo hardware, the 'guy with a swiss accent' did a review and most of them were power hungry rubbish. I just think there's a need for low power flexible esp8266's.

McChubby007 wrote:

ian wrote:Shameless plug...

Or better still - buy some ESP01 PCBs from me!

http://www.myiot.co.uk/ESP01_I2C/

Ian

I'm thinking of how many different ways I can say no to using an esp-01. In 2015 when it was all new, yep fine, but I have no clue why it makes sense now. Perhaps slightly cheaper and smaller, but way way too limited in pin count and flash size.

I'm comfortable with I2C in many applications

I use I2C all the time. But not for general I/O. It is too cumbersome. And why would I want to have to add chips if I don't have to. As far as cost, the ESP12F is $1.68 USD on Aliexpress, and the ESP-01 is $1.54. The ESP-01 has only 512K. (ESP-01S is $1.98)

I thought of buying a ESP-01 just so I could have one, but then after a little thought I decided that it wasn't worth the effort.

Exactly. I haven't bought an ESP-01 either.

The only lame benefit is that they use standard header pins for those not comfortable with soldering, but then one misses out on most of the possibilities offered by these devices.