AI-Thinker – a Trusted Supplier During the Global Chip Shortage

AI-Thinker is a leading supplier of IoT wireless products and solutions, including antennas, modules and RF lab service. Since 2017 we have been using AI-Thinker ESP-12E modules with ESP8266 in many of our open source hardware products, including ANAVI Fume Extractor, ANAVI Gas Detector, ANAVI Thermometer, ANAVI Light Controller and ANAVI Miracle Controller.

AI Thinker modules with ESP8266

Now, despite the hard times of global chip shortage, AI-Thinker keeps manufacturing and delivering high-quality modules on time. As a trusted supplier through the years, recently we have purchased from AI Thinker enough ESP-12E modules do fulfill the demand and keep making our open source hardware products.

AI Thinker modules with RISC-V microcontroller

Furthermore we stocked ESP-C3-12F modules with Espressif Systems ESP32-C3 Wi-Fi microcontroller based on the open standard instruction set architecture (ISA) RISC-V. ESP-C3-12F are pin to pin compatible with ESP-12E.

AI Thinker ESP32

AI-Thinker is based in Shenzhen, China. The company was founded 10 years ago, in 2012. They also provide LoRaWAN, NB-IoT, Bluetooth and other Wi-Fi modules.

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Updating ANAVI Miracle Controller with esptool

ANAVI Miracle Controller is an ESP8266-powered, open source, Wi-Fi dev board to control two 5 V or two 12 V LED strips. To get all new features it is highly recommended to run the latest stable version of the free and open source firmware for ANAVI Miracle Controller. We have already explained how to do it with Arduino IDE. However, there is an easier way to flash the latest version with esptool!

ANAVI Miracle Controller connected with USB to UART cable to a personal computer

Esptool is a free and open source ESP8266 and ESP32 serial bootloader command-line utility. The source code is available at GitHub under GPLv2 license. It is written in Python therefore it is universal and runs on Microsoft Windows, Mac OS and any GNU/Linux distribution (Ubuntu, Debian, Linux Mint, Fedora, CentOS, OpenSUSE, etc). We have already cover it for our other projects in a previous blog post. Today we will focus on ANAVI Miracle Controller although in general the steps are the same.

Installation

As of today, esptool works fine with Python 2.7 or Python 3. Python 2 has been deprecated since January 1, 2020 therefore it is recommended to use esptool with Python 3.

The easiest way to install the latest stable version of esptool is from pypi via pip. The pre-requirements are to have Python and pip installed. Open a terminal and execute the following command:

pip install esptool

Using write_flash argument esptool flashes pre-compiled binary to devices with ESP8266 or ESP32. Here are the exact steps:

esptool.py --port /dev/ttyUSB0 --baud 460800 write_flash --flash_size=detect 0 anavi-miracle-controller-sw-100-20200527.bin

NOTE: As of the moment the latest stable version is anavi-miracle-controller-sw-100-20200527.bin. Over the time other version may be released so please make sure you are using the latest and replace the file name accordingly in the command above!

Pretty much the same approach can be used to flash the pre-compiled firmware to any of our dev boards with ESP8266, like ANAVI Fume ExtractorANAVI ThermometerANAVI Gas Detector, etc. Apart from flashing firmware to ESP8266 and ESP32 devices, esptool has a lot of other advanced features which I encourage you to explore. Have a look at the video tutorial and run esptool.py -h to learn more.

Last but not least, huge thanks to the contributors of the open source firmware of ANAVI Miracle Controller: Per CederqvistCODeRUS and Daniel Landau. Community always must be priority for any open source project and it is great to see more people involved with ANAVI Miracle Controller!

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Getting Started with esptool for flashing firmware on ESP8266 and ESP32

Esptool is a free and open source ESP8266 and ESP32 serial bootloader command-line utility. The source code is available at GitHub under GPLv2 license. It is written in Python therefore it is universal and runs on Microsoft Windows, Mac OS and any GNU/Linux distribution (Ubuntu, Debian, Linux Mint, Fedora, CentOS, OpenSUSE, etc).

Installation

As of today esptool works fine with Python 2.7 or Python 3. Python 2 has been deprecated since January 1, 2020 therefore it is recommended to use esptool with Python 3.

The easier way to install the latest stable version of esptool is from pypi via pip. Open a terminal and execute the following command:

pip install esptool

Flashing Firmware

Using write_flash argument esptool flashed pre-compiled binary to devices with ESP8266 or ESP32. Here are the exact steps:

  • Download an appropriate binary for your ESP8266/ESP32 device.
  • Connect your device to a computer. For example, for ANAVI Thermometer, ANAVI Gas Detector, ANAVI Light Controller and ANAVI Miracle Controller you must use UART to USB debug cable.
  • Turn on the device in boot mode. For example, on ANAVI Thermometer, ANAVI Gas Detector, ANAVI Light Controller and ANAVI Miracle Controller, press and hold the RESET button and plug the power supply.
  • In a terminal execute the following command:
esptool.py --port /dev/ttyUSB0 --baud 460800 write_flash --flash_size=detect 0 firmware.bin 

Finding the Right Firmware

All ANAVI Internet of Things with ESP8266/ESP32 combine free and open source software with open source hardware. The firmware is built using Arduino IDE and a pre-compiled binary file is available at GitHub. Follow the links below to identify your ANAVI device and download appropriate binary for the latest stable firmware:

Of course, alternatively, instead of using esptool you can build the firmware from source through Arduino IDE or PlatformIO.

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