Uses for a mobile nodeMCU

[logbuilder]

Ok, lets get out of the box a bit. If you had an arduino handheld wifi device that ran on batteries, what projects might you try?

We have an Insteon based mini-mote that we like a lot. Wife keeps it on her side of the bed. She uses it. Has 8 buttons and I use as triggers to events. Simple and clean. Cost was about $40 if I remember correctly.

Seems like I could make a little box with 6 or 8 buttons that could accomplish the same. The challenge is likely physical - what switches, battery life, case, LED for feedback? The sketch seems trivial.

How about other ideas?

[Bill Brower]

You can add more I/O to the NodeMCU - just not sure if this plugin supports it. You can also use ESP Easy and just throw JSON requests to HS3.

[Bill Brower]

The current draw on these are too high for a battery project unless it is running LiON batteries and the NodeMCU is on a charger.

[logbuilder]

The current draw on these are too high for a battery project unless it is running LiON batteries and the NodeMCU is on a charger.

What if the device had a switch. You turn it on and the nodeMCU gets power from a set of AA bats. The sketch would connect to wifi and do whatever you direct it to do and then you turn it off. Probably an LED to indicate it is on. Could be buttons, or maybe be sensors, or display something on a screen.

[Bill Brower]

Typical NodeMCU on WiFi draws 180mA.
The system you talk of could work but the ESP would take some time to boot and acquire WiFi. My powered ones using JSON are quite fast when talking to HS3 over TCPIP.

[zwolfpack]

I'm using a ESP8266 board for my 'gloom detector' used to turn on/off the lights based on the outside darkness level. Its embedded in one of the exterior dusk-dawn lights and uses a photocell to determine if the light is on.

In the picture, on the left is a 120AC-5VDC converter that just fit inside the light fixture.

I'm not using the plugin. The sketch issues a JSON command every minute or when a change in state is detected.

It's a work in progress. I'm not thrilled with the photocell sensor as it can falsely report the light on if its too bright outside. I want to put a 2nd one in a different light where I think this would be a problem. So for rev 2 I'm planning on trying this current detector.

Also, about every 7-11 days it's been dying and needs to be power cycled. This always happens when the light is on so I think its noisy power. I relocated the board further from the light electronics and added a filter cap which helped (it was crashing about every 2-4 days before). Plan to try one more capacitor and after that maybe break down and add a zwave switch to allow auto cycling.