Ibeacon and wifi in esp32

[hanadjerbi1]

I'm working with esp32 as ibeacon generator to be detected on other devices and with wifi to send data via mqtt to google cloud..but I have not found a way to make them work together ... suggestions?

[Sauro98]

I am using WiFi + BLE scanning for IBeacons in my project and it mostly works. The only problems I am facing are:

• at random times the WiFi task will enter an infinite loop of not resetting the task watchdog, which causes the board to hang and a reboot is needed
• BLE scanning seems to be noticeably slower when WiFi is on

Of course, I had to resize the board's partitions, otherwise the sketch was just too big to load.

[hanadjerbi1]

I tried to synchronize between wifi and ibeacon. First I connect to the wifi and then disconnect to ensure ibeacon connection but it does not reconnect to wifi unless after reboot...
about the repair.I made the change in the default.cvs file as follows
nvs, data, nvs, 0x9000, 0x6000,
phy_init, data, phy, 0xf000, 0x1000,
factory, app, factory, 0x10000, 2M,
storage, data, fat, 0x300000, 1M,
still not working

[Sauro98]

You also have to modify upload.maximum_size in boards.txt, under the name of your board.
For the record my default.cvs looks like this:

# Name,   Type, SubType,   Offset,  Size, Flags
--
nvs,      data, nvs,     0x9000,    0x5000,
otadata,  data, ota,     0xe000,    0x2000,
app0,     app,  ota_0,   0x10000,   0x190000,
app1,     app,  ota_1,   0x1A0000,  0x190000,
eeprom,   data, 0x99,    0x330000,  0x1000,
spiffs,   data, spiffs,  0x331000,  0x0CF000,

And in boards.txt I have

esp32.name=ESP32 Dev Module

esp32.upload.tool=esptool
esp32.upload.maximum_size=1638400

About the WiFI, I connect and disconnect it multiple times with little issues, does it happen every time to you?

[hanadjerbi1]

yes unfortunately...

[Sauro98]

Are you using WiFi.reconnect()? I have to disconnect and reconnect to the WiFi at each send, otherwise the BLE scan would be just too slow.
I am using this code and it works for me almost every time (it hangs after running for some days):

// Before sending data via WiFi
WiFi.mode(WIFI_STA);
WiFi.begin(ssid, password);

// Sending the actual data here

// After sending the data
WiFi.disconnect();

For some reason WiFi.reconnect() did not work for me, but using WiFi.begin every time seems to work

Edit: edited because I forgot the WiFi.mode line

[hanadjerbi1]

almost the same
//to disconnect
WiFi.disconnect(true);
WiFi.mode(WIFI_OFF);
//to connect
WiFi.enableSTA(true);
WiFi.mode(WIFI_STA);
WiFi.begin(ssid, password);

[Sauro98]

(I edited my comment above)

I'll try to replicate the issue and let you know what I get

[hanadjerbi1]

okay..i'm working to find a solution as soon as possible

[Sauro98]

I tried using the code you posted here and it reconnects every single time without any issues. Bear in mind that, at least for me, it won't reconnect immediately. You might have to wait a little until it is connected. I have set a 40 seconds timeout and usually all connections happen in less than 15 secondes.

By the way how much heap is still free in your board at execution time? Heve you freed the memory used by bluetooth functionalities that you don't use?

[hanadjerbi1]

did you put them in loop() function or in setup() ?...also for me ibeacon (ble) takes a lot of space..

[Sauro98]

I'm using the code you posted here in the loop function of my WiFi+BLE program. It takes a lot of space for me too, but luckily you can free some of it by calling

ESP_ERROR_CHECK(esp_bt_controller_mem_release(ESP_BT_MODE_CLASSIC_BT));

before initializing the BLE. It frees the resources needed for classic Bluetooth, which are useless if you are only gonna use BLE