Dear friends welcome back! This is Nick from
educ8s.tv and in this video we are going to
compare the computational speed of the WeMOS
D1 ESP8266 based Arduino compatible board
with the computational speed of the most popular
Arduino boards and the Teensy 3.2. Let’s get started!
A few weeks ago, in a similar video we compared
the performance of the Teensy with the most
popular Arduino boards. Today, we are going
to add another board to the comparison, the
WeMOS D1 ESP8266 Arduino compatible board.
I have prepared a detailed tutorial on that
board so you can check it out before we start.
In order to compare the processing power of
the boards, all the boards, the Arduino Uno,
the Arduino Due, a Teensy 3.2 and the WeMOS
D1 will run the same sketch. The Newton’s
approximation of PI for half a million iterations.
The time needed to execute this task is then
displayed on a 1.8” Color TFT display. This
way we are going to have a visual representation
of the speed differences of the boards. In
order to see how to connect the display with
the Teensy or the Arduino boards check out
the tutorial I have prepared on that. You
can find links for all the parts in the description
of the video.
The WeMOS D1 board uses the ESP8266 processor
which is a 32bit processor that can operate
at a frequency as high as160MHz, and it has
4Mbs of Flash memory! As you can imagine,
the performance difference with the 8bit 16MHz
Arduino Uno is going to be huge. But let’s
see how much faster the WeMOS D1 really is
compared to an Arduino Uno. I have set the
frequency of the WeMOS D1 at 160MHz in order
to perform the experiment.
I have connected a button to both boards so
when I press it the computation of the Pi
starts on both boards at the same time. Let’s
start!
As you can see the WeMOS D1 needed 1.7 seconds
to perform this task! The Arduino Uno is struggling
to calculate the Pi and drive the display.
The Arduino Uno needed 29 seconds to complete
the same task! That’s a really huge difference,
the WeMOS D1 is 17 times faster than the Arduino
Uno in this experiment! For less than 8$ we
can get an Arduino compatible WiFi enabled
board which is 17 times faster than the Arduino
Uno!
Let’s now compare the performance of the
WeMOS D1 board with that of the most powerful
Arduino board, the Arduino Due. As you can
see, the WeMOS D1 is faster than the Arduino
Due as well. The Arduino Due needed 3.8 seconds
to perform the task. So, the WeMOS D1 board
is 2.2 times faster than the fastest Arduino
board in this experiment. Even the fast Arduino
Due, looks slow in comparison with the WeMOS
D1 board.
Lastly, let’s compare the WeMOS D1, with
the Teensy 3.2 board which is clocked at 96MHz
in this example, the fastest clock speed I
can set via the Arduino IDE. I know that the
Teensy can operate at higher frequencies but
I will stick with the 96MHz frequency that
is easily available via the Arduino IDE. The
Teensy 3.2 board needed 2.9 seconds in order
to execute the task. That’s 70% slower than
the WeMOS D1. If we could overclock the Teensy
to operate at the frequency of 160 MHz I expect
that the performance of it would be similar
to the performance of the WeMOS D1.
The code of the project is based on the work
of the user securd which posted his code on
the Arduino forums. I slightly modified the
code in order to use a button and to display
the results on a color TFT display. I made
some minor changes in order the code to work
the WeMOS D1 board. There is no change in
the algorithm I just used different pins for
it. If you wish, you can download the code
of the project from a link which can be found
in the description of the video.
Before we go, let’s compare the power consumption
of each board when executing the program.
The WeMOS D1, needs around 70mA of current.
The Arduino Uno needs 70 – 80 mAs, the Arduino
Due, needs 180mAs and lastly the Teensy 3.2
needs 70 mAs. This current draw includes the
current draw of the display which needs around
40mAs. From the results we can clearly see
that the power consumption of the WeMOS D1
is similar to the power consumption of the
Arduino Uno if we don’t use the WiFi. Another
bonus for the WeMOS D1. The Teensy 3.2 board
offers the lowest power consumption, it is
the smallest in size and offers great performance.
It is an impressive board.
From the results of this test I am really
impressed by the WeMOS D1 board. I didn’t
expect to offer so much at such a low price.
It is a great board which will allow us to
build more advanced projects with a very low
cost. So, is it the ideal board to replace
the Arduino Uno? Unfortunately it is not,
yet. In my experience the board is not very
stable. For instance the code of this example
does not execute well if I set the processor
speed of the board at 80MHz. It stops calculating
at some time and reboots. I don’t know if
it is bug of the board, a bug of my code or
a bug in the ST7735 library. The fact that
it does not work well at all times makes me
think that the WeMOS board is not 100% ready
to work with. It needs more tests and more
time to mature. But I really think this board
has a huge potential. With its low price it
will shake up things for good. I would like
to hear your opinion on that. What do you
think about this board? Do you think that
it is good replacement of Arduino boards for
some projects? Please post your comments or
ideas in the comments section below. Thanks!
If this is your first time here, I would love
to have you subscribed. In this channel I
post videos about DIY projects every Saturday.
I love making things and I believe that anyone
can make things, anyone can become a maker.
That’s why I created this channel, in order
to share my knowledge with the community and
learn from the community. I hope you will
join us. Until next Saturday, Watch, Learn,Build!
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