Ai-thinker has launched new Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Modules, Ai-WB2-M1 and Ai-WB2-M1-I, they are compact and powerful.
Ai-thinker’s Ai-WB2-M1/Ai-WB2-M1-I modules are tiny package Wi-Fi & Bluetooth Module which has much better performance than their classic ESP-C3-M1/ESP-C3-M1-1 modules. Both the variants Ai-WB2-M1 & Ai-WB2-M1-I are pin and features compatible.
Ai-thinker Module Package Top and Bottom View
Comparison / Pin Compatibility with ESP-C3-M1
For the developers who have used ESP-C3-M1/ESP-C3-M1-1 in their designs before, they can directly use Ai-WB2-M1/Ai-WB2-M1-I on their same boards, and the upgrade without any hardware modification.
Pinouts of Ai-thinker Ai-WB2-M1 Module
15 IOs are available with various interfaces like SPI, I2C, PWM, ADC, etc.
Ai-WB2 series module is a new masterpiece “WiFi+X big connection” series launched by Ai-Thinker last year, from classic WiFi to WiFi+BLE+X.
Ai-WB2-M1 is built on BL602 chip as the main processor, and supports Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n protocol and BLE 5.0 protocol.
The BL602 chip has a low-power 32-bit RISC CPU, 276KB RAM and rich peripheral interfaces, including SDIO, SPI, UART, I2C, IR remote, PWM, ADC, DAC, PIR and GPIO.
It can be widely used in Internet of Things (IoT), mobile devices, wearable electronic devices, smart homes and other fields.
A lot of security functions are also available on the chip, Security hardware: TrustZone
| ■ Secure Boot with support for images signed with ECC-256 ■Secure debug port ■QSPI/SPI Flash instant AES decryption (OTFAD), AES128 CTR mode ■AES 128/192/256 bit encryption engine ■SHA-1/224/256 ■True Random Number Generator (TRNG) ■Public Key Accelerator (PKA), supports basic operations of large numbers, and the software provides application programming interfaces such as signature and verification |
Technical Spec of Ai-WB2-M1 Module
Meet that requirement of low cost for manufacturers and easy use of consumer.
With the continuous demand of the more and more intelligent smart home appliances, the wireless communication module specification are also getting powerful.
For a hardware manufacturer, controlling the cost is very important.
In terms of firmware, Ai-WB2-M1 supports multiple sleep modes. It is built on RISC-V core and operates at Max. frequency of 192Mhz.
Module Price
In terms of price, Ai-WB2-M1 module is less than 1.5USD. Compared with its function, this price is really a conscience price in the market. You can find the module available on Taobao or Alibaba.
Ai-Thinker ensures the stability and reliability of the modules while satisfying the demands of hardware manufacturers for higher performance and lower cost.
Today, Smart home products have entered thousands of households, but with the popularity of smart home, many challenges have begun to appear.
Among them, there are two main problems that bother consumers the most.
First, the stability of equipment, which often leads to unstable connection and network delay of equipment.
Second, there are compatibility problems between different brands of household equipment, which makes it impossible to control them easily.
Reliability Tests done on Ai-thinker Module
The Ai-WB2-M1 module passed the double 85 test for 43 days non-stop.
What is a double 85 test?
It is to test the reliability of the module for 1000 hours under the condition that the environment is set at 85℃ temperature and the humidity is also 85%. This is check limit to which the product can bear the harsh environment(high temperature and high humidity).
The Ai-WB2 series module products have passed the double 85 test and have greater reliability and stability.
In the practical application of intelligent terminal products, it can effectively reduce the pain points such as equipment disconnection, network disconnection and delay, it helps improve the quality of products, and then enhance the user experience is great.
Ai-WB2-M1 Modules support the Matter protocol
Matter is a unified smart home connectivity protocol standard.
This protocol breaks the ecological barrier, so that consumers no longer have to download a new app every time they use a smart product from a different company.
For equipment manufacturers, the use of products that support the Matter protocol will further enhance the competitiveness of products. They don’t need to worry about using different hardware modules for supporting different protocols.
For the end users, it is a great news.
Ai-WB2-M1 supports AT commands, can be used quickly, supports the secondary development of SDK, and integrates the development environment of Windows and Linux.
I think, this Wi-Fi Bluetooth module Ai-WB2-M1 is interesting and worth the evaluation. If you planned to use BL602 chip anyways this module could be used as evaluation platform 🙂
Module Documentation
- Ai-WB2 module develop documents: https://docs.ai-thinker.com/en/wb2
- Ai-WB2- module SDK: https://github.com/Ai-Thinker-Open/Ai-Thinker-WB2
- And all the sample code in this link: https://github.com/Ai-Thinker-Open/Ai-Thinker-WB2/tree/main/applications
I am currently working as an embedded systems design consultant helping companies build custom embedded products and develop test automation solutions for their PCB.
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