The size and price of the ESP wifi modules have quickly made them into one of the preferred building blocks for IoT devices. Unfortunately they are not particularly well suited for very low power applications. [LittlePetieWheat] wanted to add MQTT to a cheap PIR solar light, so he paired an ESP with an Attiny85 to hold it to a strict power budget.
Most of these lights contain some sort of no-name microcontroller that monitors the analog PIR sensor, and turns on the LEDs as required. [LittlePetieWheat] replaced the PIR sensor with one that gives a digital output for simpler interfacing. The Attiny serves as the low power brains of the project. Its tasks include reading the solar panel and battery voltages, and PIR output. When movement is detected by the sensor, it activates a clever little latching power circuit to power on the ESP01 just long enough to send a MQTT message. The LEDs are only turned on if there is no power coming from the solar panel. The solar power is stored in a 18650 battery.
The Attiny85 might not be a powerhouse, but it is perfect for simple, low power applications like this. We’ve also seen it pushed to its limits by running tiny machine learning models, or receiving software updates over I2C.
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