New Pi Zero Wireless!


 
Yeah! I have one ordered to test but considering it is the same CPU as on the Zero currently, and the same wifi as on the Pi3, the OpenWrt images should just work. Problem is that now you need to add 2x13 male pin header to the cost as well.
 
Managed to order one before the Cana Kit website came to a screeching halt.

The headers are a pretty minor cost on the HeaterMeter BOM list.
 
My Pi Zero Wireless arrived today. Got it up and running with raspbian jessie lite pretty quickly. Going to try it out as a LinkMeter host at a later date.

Now that these tiny units have wireless and BT on them, I think they're going to be great for all sorts of home automation use. Arduino is more lightweight, but it's a heck of a lot easier to run & update some python scripts on a Pi with a full blown IP stack on it.
 
Well where is mine then, Steve!? Actually, I wouldn't expect it for almost another week :(

They're definitely easier to use than any of the microcontroller-based devices because you can just write scripts, compared to an ESP8266. Not really any chance of running it off a battery though. I'm also still waiting on my Meater which would be great to interface via the Bluetooth to HeaterMeter. The other problem with the Zero W is that, if it is anything like the Zero was, it never was in stock anywhere. It looks like they're more readily available so far, so let's hope they start getting giant boxes of them so I can buy them in bulk.
 
The Zero idles at around 90mA with the HDMI output off. Not too bad. It went up to about 200mA when making it do some work. I think these will be pretty plentiful.
 
I got my hands on one too, but haven't had a chance to solder a header to it and put it to use... Might have to build a HMv4.3 to go along with it just to keep me up to speed.
Seems like an ideal situation, super cheap and small footprint. HM+rPi Zero+MicroSD card.... Done!
 
Yeah, if they're going to be abundant and not continuously out of stock like the original Zeros, it would make sense to redesign the HeaterMeter again to fit around it. It would be much easier without having all the USB and Ethernet ports in the way like the Pi 3 has.
 
Mine came today! Bad news is that it doesn't work with HeaterMeter, even if you update the bootloader code. Something about the kernel itself isn't booting, because if I swap in the official Pi kernel it boots fine (but nothing works once it boots). I've done a quick look through the kernel commit log and don't see anything specific to this that stands out so it will take some research to figure out how to get the PiW working.
 
Got mine and got the header soldered on. I was hoping it would just work magically. I'm hoping you big brains figure it out soon.
 
Me too... Hoping Bryan will have the time to work out whatever the issue is here so this board can be used for the HM. If it actually does become widely available for $10 that would be the best/cheapest option yet to get a HM up and running with the full web interface.
 
Good news is I seem to be on the right track for getting it working (not just stuck on the rainbow screen any more) although it is going to take a bunch of work. Bad news is that I just went out to get charcoal from the garage for today's ribs and my water heater has decided the words "water holder" are not in its job description. My charcoal is soaking wet! Also everything else in the garage. The rest of today is dedicated to getting everything off the floor and dried off and then getting a new water heater tomorrow. I also need to do Smokin' Hardware's taxes by the 15th, can't I just tell the IRS "look, we don't make enough money for this to be worth anyone's time"?

But the good news is pork spareribs for dinner, and if things continue to go as smoothly in development as they did this morning I am hopeful to have a new 2708 image by next weekend. That doesn't mean for sure that it is going to be supported but unless I run into a real head-scratcher it should work.
 
Ugh. Sorry to hear about the HWT. I narrowly escaped the same thing from happening last summer. I heard this faint dripping sound when I was in the basement and sure enough the bottom was all rusted out of the tank. I figured that I wouldn't want to deal with that again so I went with tankless unit as a replacement. The endless supply of hot water is also a bonus!

Solid work on the solution for the Pi Zero W!
 
<chuckle> To some of us, water heaters, laundry, refrigerators & freezers in the garage are rather foreign.

Bryan, did it really corrode through? or did the overpressure/overtemp valve go? Deb & I came back from a long weekend to about 10 sq. ft. of wet carpet. After a fairly long troubleshooting period, turns out that water hammer from the front load washing machine was almost certainly killing it. I put a pressure gauge on the drain and watched while the washing machine cycles. The needle pegged at over 175psi with the water hammer. I now have a big set of hammer arrestors mounted at the washing machine valve.
 
Oh man that would have been a lot more interesting if there was something that caused the problem, but no the bottom just sprung a leak. It is 17 years old though which seems to be positively ancient for a water heater. I was pretty excited about what sort of technological advances they'd have in the new models, but turns out gas water heaters are still the same as they were back then except now they have a little more insulation around them. I did consider tankless because those are super cool, but considering I only use like 4-5 therms a month for all my gas appliances it didn't really seem to be worth the extra money.
 
Ever wonder how hot water tanks seem to burst right after the warrantee runs out, almost like they have a timer in them? Well, they kinda do... They have what is called a "sacrificial anode" in them which is made of metal that will corrode faster than the metals used in the tank construction. The sacrificial anode will corrode away until it is gone and then the tank starts to corrode like mad and bursts. The main difference between the 5y, 10y, 15y tanks is the size of the sacrificial anode, which determines when your tank is gonna burst on you...
 
Just checking back in on this, the kernel is running and the wifi and other peripherals are working perfectly so that's good. I still have a bunch of little cleanup to make all the services work properly and it is kinda getting rolled into another change I wanted to make which is to change how the upgrade / restore process works. It doesn't seem to operate how people expect it to with regards to "resetting" a configuration back to default by re-imaging so I'm changing how it works so that the upgrade saves / restores your configuration only if you upgrade from the webui and you can reset to default either using "Reset Config?" or not checking the "Keep settings?" box like you can now, but also if you pull the card out and reimage it with a clean image.

Because I'm rolling that in as well with all the changes (which also solves another TOFIX item and will be easier to maintain I think) it is taking a little longer, but not much longer. Maybe another week or so for Pi Zero W support in a snapshot.
 
Nice work Bryan! Now if only the pi zero W would become widely available for $10 the bottom line cost of the HM will drop down quite a bit...
 

 

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