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Raspberry Pi Zero Wireless - Rumors & Speculation!


Dan25

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got today mine.

raspberry pi zero W v.1.1

at first glance don't see where the wireless chip is but have to see if have time to get it running

 

seems similar to what Raspberry Pi 3 install process does
- serial console is blocked by the bluetooth chip (which you can override from /boot/config.txt; dtoverlay=pi3-disable-bt)
- remote ssh is blocked (haven't checked what the raspiconfig does to allow it)

- uses wpa_suplicant for wireless

 lsmod
Module                  Size  Used by
sg                     20831  0 
brcmfmac              201842  0 
brcmutil                9031  1 brcmfmac
snd_bcm2835            23131  0 
snd_pcm                95473  1 snd_bcm2835
snd_timer              22556  1 snd_pcm
snd                    68400  3 snd_bcm2835,snd_timer,snd_pcm
cfg80211              500739  1 brcmfmac
rfkill                 21397  2 cfg80211
bcm2835_gpiomem         3759  0 
bcm2835_wdt             4133  0 
uio_pdrv_genirq         3718  0 
uio                    10230  1 uio_pdrv_genirq
ipv6                  367697  20 

# lscpu
Architecture:          armv6l
Byte Order:            Little Endian
CPU(s):                1
On-line CPU(s) list:   0
Thread(s) per core:    1
Core(s) per socket:    1
Socket(s):             1
Model name:            ARMv6-compatible processor rev 7 (v6l)
CPU max MHz:           1000.0000
CPU min MHz:           700.0000

root@zerow1:~# ifconfig wlan0
wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr ---  
          inet addr:192.168.88.194  Bcast:192.168.88.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:8213 errors:0 dropped:21 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:2790 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:10297797 (9.8 MiB)  TX bytes:351783 (343.5 KiB)

 

IMG_20170307_183921.jpg

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I ordered mine a week ago at buyzero.de while being listed 'in stock'. I got my bill, they debited the money (including 5.69€ for inner city shipping with DHL) but still no device shipped (wanted to do some Wi-Fi tests).

 

Yes, that's a clear »don't buy there« recommendation regarding buyzero.de :) 

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On 7.3.2017 at 3:32 PM, jkajolin said:

- remote ssh is blocked (haven't checked what the raspiconfig does to allow it)

- uses wpa_suplicant for wireless

 

Not enabling SSH any more by default is now called a 'security update' since even RPi foundation got it that pre-defined users/passwords are a really bad thing: https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/a-security-update-for-raspbian-pixel/

 

But instead of doing it correctly (forcing the user to change the password on 1st login or even create an own sudo enabled user) they chose to make it harder to set a new RPi up (I'm glad I did the first step with my RPi 3 since without knowing the /boot/ssh hack I would've been lost with Zero W since I have no HDMI adapter for this board).

 

Regarding wpa_supplicant: Really no need to use this anachronistic stuff even on Raspbian. All I did was

apt-get --no-install-recommends install network-manager
iw reg set DE
nmcli device wifi connect 'Snort-Honeynet' password 'secret' ifname wlan0

(nmtui didn't work for whatever reasons, maybe network-manager is too outdated in Raspbian? And I also had to add 'iw reg set DE' to /etc/rc.local to be able to use Wi-Fi channel 13 which is the one my AP always chooses in 2.4 GHz band since least polluted)

 

Will start testing on the weekend with Zero W since buyzero.de managed to process my order from 1st March yesterday and DHL tracking confirmed delivery today. Not the best performance compared to Pimoroni in last summer (they processed my first Zero order within 24 hours, sent from the UK for less costs in shorter total time) but it doesn't really matter since I don't think I'll ever buy 'non products' from this mythical Foundation again. If the 'Zero W' will ever turn from a marketing stunt into a product (can be bought in quantities and is available at normal resellers) then it doesn't matter how bad 'authorized resellers' perform or not :)

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'Great' experience so far. I ordered the enclosure kit since it does not only contain 4 small plastic pieces but also a small camera cable for which you get ripped-off by generous RPi foundation with at least 4 bucks minimum. Enclosure kit isn't assembled correctly (two times the camera top included) and SD card with Raspbian from RPi 3 doesn't work on this Zero out of the box (maybe it's damaged, the DHL guy cramped it into my mailbox hours ago)

 

RPi_Zero_W_Enclosure.jpg

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OK, to get into this Zero W thingie headless I had to start from scratch. For whatever reasons the Raspbian Lite image I was using on RPi 3 before did not connect to my Wi-Fi when started on the Zero. Also the usual way to get into using g_ether module didn't work (maybe since I upgraded RPi kernel to 4.9 in the meantime?). No idea.

 

Edit: It seems the kernel update to latest 4.9 release breaks g_ether functionality. To test through Wi-Fi performance I repeated the kernel update on the freshly flashed Raspbian image and now Ethernet over USB isn't working again.

 

So I decided to reflash Raspbian Lite and to start from scratch following the instructions in first paragraph here: 

Here are the simple steps I did after Etcher finished burning/verifying the image on my MacBook Pro: I checked with 'diskutil list' which disk device the SD card was (disk2) and then to enable SSH and Ethernet gadget mode on Raspberry's USB OTG port:

diskutil mountDisk disk2
echo "what a shit show" >/Volumes/boot/ssh
echo "dtoverlay=dwc2" >>/Volumes/boot/config.txt
sed -i 's/rootwait/rootwait modules-load=dwc2,g_ether/' /Volumes/boot/cmdline.txt
diskutil eject disk2

Then I ejected the SD card physically, inserted it into Zero's SD card slot and connected the USB Micro USB port on the Zero with one of the USB3 ports of my MacBook. As soon as the Zero appeared as an USB Ethernet adapter (g_ether), I activated 'Internet Sharing' so the Raspbian on the Zero has been supplied with an IP address and NAT routing from OS X. Then it was a simple 'ssh pi@raspberrypi.local' and I was in.

 

Next steps in Raspbian:

sudo -s
apt-get --no-install-recommends install network-manager
# deleting wlan0 and wlan1 from /etc/network/interfaces
systemctl restart network-manager
nmcli dev wifi list # showed nothing
# adding 'iw reg set DE' to /etc/rc.local
reboot

And then it was just logging in through USB again and a simple call to get Wi-Fi working:

 

bash-3.2# ssh pi@raspberrypi.local
Warning: Permanently added the RSA host key for IP address '192.168.2.4' to the list of known hosts.
pi@raspberrypi.local's password: 

The programs included with the Debian GNU/Linux system are free software;
the exact distribution terms for each program are described in the
individual files in /usr/share/doc/*/copyright.

Debian GNU/Linux comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, to the extent
permitted by applicable law.
Last login: Thu Mar  9 15:49:15 2017 from 192.168.2.1
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo -s
root@raspberrypi:/home/pi# iwconfig 
wlan0     IEEE 802.11bgn  ESSID:off/any  
          Mode:Managed  Access Point: Not-Associated   Tx-Power=31 dBm   
          Retry short limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:on
          
lo        no wireless extensions.

usb0      no wireless extensions.

root@raspberrypi:/home/pi# nmcli dev wifi list
*  SSID                             MODE   CHAN  RATE       SIGNAL  BARS  SECURITY  
   DISTORTEDPEOPLE                  Infra  9     54 Mbit/s  67      ▂▄▆_  WPA1 WPA2 
   EasyBox-116D28                   Infra  5     54 Mbit/s  50      ▂▄__  WPA1 WPA2 
   FRITZ!Box Fon WLAN 7360          Infra  1     54 Mbit/s  45      ▂▄__  WPA1 WPA2 
   SEC_LinkShare_872802             Infra  1     54 Mbit/s  44      ▂▄__  WPA2      
   EasyBox-188632                   Infra  10    54 Mbit/s  39      ▂▄__  WPA1 WPA2 
   DISTORTEDPEOPLE_EXT              Infra  9     54 Mbit/s  34      ▂▄__  WPA1 WPA2 
   WLAN-341381                      Infra  11    54 Mbit/s  32      ▂▄__  WPA2      
   Fallibilismus                    Infra  7     54 Mbit/s  29      ▂___  WPA1 WPA2 
   Eichkatze                        Infra  11    54 Mbit/s  27      ▂___  WPA2      
   WLAN-3C3379                      Infra  11    54 Mbit/s  24      ▂___  WPA2      
   Snort-Honeynet                   Infra  13    54 Mbit/s  59      ▂▄▆_  WPA2      
   FRITZ!Box 7490                   Infra  11    54 Mbit/s  47      ▂▄__  WPA2      
   Wonder Woman                     Infra  6     54 Mbit/s  39      ▂▄__  WPA1 WPA2 
   OSAs Gästenetzwerk               Infra  6     54 Mbit/s  27      ▂___  WPA1 WPA2 
   DIRECT-E9-HP OfficeJet Pro 8710  Infra  6     54 Mbit/s  19      ▂___  WPA2      
root@raspberrypi:/home/pi# nmcli device wifi connect 'Snort-Honeynet' password 'secret' ifname wlan0
Connection with UUID '2bb05596-dbee-483c-a7f2-693d3549d7c7' created and activated on device 'wlan0'
root@raspberrypi:/home/pi# ifconfig 
lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:65536  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

usb0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 06:14:6e:17:5f:4c  
          inet addr:192.168.2.4  Bcast:192.168.2.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::89fe:e8de:f62:16e9/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:437 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:267 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:193782 (189.2 KiB)  TX bytes:34498 (33.6 KiB)

wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr b8:27:eb:e5:a2:a2  
          inet addr:192.168.83.192  Bcast:192.168.83.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:132 errors:0 dropped:119 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:27 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:57437 (56.0 KiB)  TX bytes:5404 (5.2 KiB)

root@raspberrypi:/home/pi# netstat -rn
Kernel IP routing table
Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags   MSS Window  irtt Iface
0.0.0.0         192.168.2.1     0.0.0.0         UG        0 0          0 usb0
0.0.0.0         192.168.83.1    0.0.0.0         UG        0 0          0 wlan0
0.0.0.0         192.168.2.1     0.0.0.0         UG        0 0          0 usb0
192.168.2.0     0.0.0.0         255.255.255.0   U         0 0          0 usb0
192.168.83.0    0.0.0.0         255.255.255.0   U         0 0          0 wlan0

 

 

 

Now let's see whether RPi Zero shows better Wi-Fi performance as RPi 3 (should be the case according to RPi people due to 'better antenna'): 

 

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Another small update: Since I want to rely on g_ether functionality I stay with kernel 4.4.50 on the Zero W for now. Performance is better than with the USB Ethernet equipped larger raspberries, I got 108/124 Mbits/sec over the Micro USB port:

 

root@raspberrypi:/home/pi# iperf3 -c 192.168.2.1
Connecting to host 192.168.2.1, port 5201
[  4] local 192.168.2.5 port 46222 connected to 192.168.2.1 port 5201
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bandwidth       Retr  Cwnd
[  4]   0.00-1.04   sec  13.8 MBytes   111 Mbits/sec    0    120 KBytes       
[  4]   1.04-2.02   sec  12.5 MBytes   107 Mbits/sec    0    134 KBytes       
[  4]   2.02-3.09   sec  13.8 MBytes   107 Mbits/sec    0    134 KBytes       
[  4]   3.09-4.06   sec  12.5 MBytes   108 Mbits/sec    0    134 KBytes       
[  4]   4.06-5.04   sec  12.5 MBytes   108 Mbits/sec    0    134 KBytes       
[  4]   5.04-6.01   sec  12.5 MBytes   108 Mbits/sec    0    134 KBytes       
[  4]   6.01-7.07   sec  13.8 MBytes   108 Mbits/sec    0    134 KBytes       
[  4]   7.07-8.04   sec  12.5 MBytes   108 Mbits/sec    0    134 KBytes       
[  4]   8.04-9.01   sec  12.5 MBytes   108 Mbits/sec    0    134 KBytes       
[  4]   9.01-10.08  sec  13.8 MBytes   108 Mbits/sec    0    134 KBytes       
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bandwidth       Retr
[  4]   0.00-10.08  sec   130 MBytes   108 Mbits/sec    0             sender
[  4]   0.00-10.08  sec   130 MBytes   108 Mbits/sec                  receiver

iperf Done.
root@raspberrypi:/home/pi# iperf3 -R -c 192.168.2.1
Connecting to host 192.168.2.1, port 5201
Reverse mode, remote host 192.168.2.1 is sending
[  4] local 192.168.2.5 port 46226 connected to 192.168.2.1 port 5201
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bandwidth
[  4]   0.00-1.01   sec  14.9 MBytes   124 Mbits/sec                  
[  4]   1.01-2.00   sec  14.6 MBytes   124 Mbits/sec                  
[  4]   2.00-3.01   sec  14.8 MBytes   123 Mbits/sec                  
[  4]   3.01-4.00   sec  14.6 MBytes   124 Mbits/sec                  
[  4]   4.00-5.01   sec  14.9 MBytes   124 Mbits/sec                  
[  4]   5.01-6.01   sec  14.8 MBytes   124 Mbits/sec                  
[  4]   6.01-7.00   sec  14.8 MBytes   124 Mbits/sec                  
[  4]   7.00-8.01   sec  14.8 MBytes   123 Mbits/sec                  
[  4]   8.01-9.00   sec  14.5 MBytes   123 Mbits/sec                  
[  4]   9.00-10.00  sec  14.9 MBytes   125 Mbits/sec                  
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bandwidth
[  4]   0.00-10.00  sec   148 MBytes   124 Mbits/sec                  sender
[  4]   0.00-10.00  sec   148 MBytes   124 Mbits/sec                  receiver

iperf Done.

 

Then I set up an AP (using network-manager of course):

apt-get install dnsmasq-base network-manager
nmcli c add type wifi ifname wlan0 con-name ap-wlan0 autoconnect no ssid zerowifi
nmcli connection modify ap-wlan0 802-11-wireless.mode ap 802-11-wireless.band bg ipv4.method shared
nmcli connection modify ap-wlan0 wifi-sec.key-mgmt wpa-psk
nmcli connection modify ap-wlan0 wifi-sec.psk "g7RjnVCn8t6L7EqfpieouE"
nmcli connection up ap-wlan0

Quick verification from another client:

root@nanopiair:~# nmcli dev wifi list
*  SSID                             MODE   CHAN  RATE       SIGNAL  BARS  SECURITY  
   zerowifi                         Infra  1     54 Mbit/s  100     ▂▄▆█  WPA1      
   EasyBox-116D28                   Infra  5     54 Mbit/s  92      ▂▄▆█  WPA1 WPA2 
*  Snort-Honeynet                   Infra  13    54 Mbit/s  84      ▂▄▆█  WPA2      
...

Well, channel 1 isn't that good in my environment. Network-manager obviously tries some sort of 'auto channel' detection but obviously fails -- ACS (Automatic Channel Selection) is something that is said only to work with real Wi-Fi chipsets (Atheros). So I simply added 'iw reg set DE' to /etc/rc.local to be able to use Wi-Fi channels 12/13 and used then nmtui --> 'Edit connection' to switch to channel 13 and allow automatic start of the AP at startup.

 

Now I started an 'iperf3 -s' on the Zero W and then all that was needed from another SBC running Armbian was a simple 'nmcli device wifi connect' call to join the WiFi and start some measurements:

 

root@bananapro:~# nmcli device wifi connect 'zerowifi' password 'g7RjnVCn8t6L7EqfpieouE' ifname wlan0
Device 'wlan0' successfully activated with 'd240f5a3-e7ea-4511-9bdd-d7b06bef0313'.
root@bananapro:~# iwconfig
wlan0     IEEE 802.11  ESSID:"zerowifi"  
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.472 GHz  Access Point: B8:27:EB:E5:A2:A2   
          Bit Rate=26 Mb/s   Tx-Power=31 dBm   
          Retry short limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:on
          Link Quality=44/70  Signal level=-66 dBm  
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:2  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

root@bananapro:~# ifconfig 
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 02:08:09:c0:e5:58  
          inet addr:192.168.83.89  Bcast:192.168.83.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::8:9ff:fec0:e558/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:10117 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:11002 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:1056606 (1.0 MB)  TX bytes:13918398 (13.9 MB)
          Interrupt:49 

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:65536  Metric:1
          RX packets:9 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:9 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1 
          RX bytes:744 (744.0 B)  TX bytes:744 (744.0 B)

wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 98:3b:16:e8:b6:35  
          inet addr:10.42.0.90  Bcast:10.42.0.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::11a6:8fd5:11ff:3c61/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:17 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:37 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:2143 (2.1 KB)  TX bytes:6477 (6.4 KB)

root@bananapro:~# iperf3 -c 10.42.0.1
Connecting to host 10.42.0.1, port 5201
[  4] local 10.42.0.90 port 51802 connected to 10.42.0.1 port 5201
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bandwidth       Retr  Cwnd
[  4]   0.00-1.00   sec   718 KBytes  5.88 Mbits/sec   20   22.6 KBytes       
[  4]   1.00-2.00   sec   716 KBytes  5.86 Mbits/sec    3   32.5 KBytes       
[  4]   2.00-3.00   sec   822 KBytes  6.73 Mbits/sec    0   43.8 KBytes       
[  4]   3.00-4.00   sec   532 KBytes  4.36 Mbits/sec   20   21.2 KBytes       
[  4]   4.00-5.00   sec   663 KBytes  5.43 Mbits/sec    0   35.4 KBytes       
[  4]   5.00-6.00   sec   735 KBytes  6.02 Mbits/sec    8   31.1 KBytes       
[  4]   6.00-7.00   sec   730 KBytes  5.98 Mbits/sec    3   33.9 KBytes       
[  4]   7.00-8.00   sec   829 KBytes  6.79 Mbits/sec    4   24.0 KBytes       
[  4]   8.00-9.00   sec   809 KBytes  6.63 Mbits/sec    5   21.2 KBytes       
[  4]   9.00-10.00  sec   632 KBytes  5.18 Mbits/sec    0   35.4 KBytes       
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bandwidth       Retr
[  4]   0.00-10.00  sec  7.02 MBytes  5.89 Mbits/sec   63             sender
[  4]   0.00-10.00  sec  6.96 MBytes  5.84 Mbits/sec                  receiver

iperf Done.
root@bananapro:~# iperf3 -R -c 10.42.0.1
Connecting to host 10.42.0.1, port 5201
Reverse mode, remote host 10.42.0.1 is sending
[  4] local 10.42.0.90 port 51806 connected to 10.42.0.1 port 5201
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bandwidth
[  4]   0.00-1.00   sec  1.14 MBytes  9.59 Mbits/sec                  
[  4]   1.00-2.00   sec  1.03 MBytes  8.68 Mbits/sec                  
[  4]   2.00-3.00   sec   587 KBytes  4.80 Mbits/sec                  
[  4]   3.00-4.00   sec  1017 KBytes  8.33 Mbits/sec                  
[  4]   4.00-5.00   sec   823 KBytes  6.74 Mbits/sec                  
[  4]   5.00-6.00   sec  18.4 KBytes   151 Kbits/sec                  
[  4]   6.00-7.00   sec  25.5 KBytes   209 Kbits/sec                  
[  4]   7.00-8.00   sec  18.4 KBytes   151 Kbits/sec                  
[  4]   8.00-9.00   sec  15.6 KBytes   127 Kbits/sec                  
[  4]   9.00-10.00  sec  17.0 KBytes   139 Kbits/sec                  
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bandwidth       Retr
[  4]   0.00-10.00  sec  4.78 MBytes  4.01 Mbits/sec  113             sender
[  4]   0.00-10.00  sec  4.64 MBytes  3.89 Mbits/sec                  receiver

iperf Done.

 

Performance is quite ok for the setup (4-5 Mbits/sec from ~6 meters away and one wall in between). Future use case is using either RPi Zero W, NanoPi Air or OrangePi Lite with

  • camera (I'm testing now with the newer 8MP camera on Zero W)
  • some local sensors
  • some ESP8266 connected through the AP
  • connected to a server through Micro USB to both power the SBC through the USB cable and establish the USB Ethernet gadget connection (faster than Fast Ethernet)

This will be part of rack cabinet / server closet surveillance. Basic idea is to to plug in SBC + camera + sensors to a server that gets an eye this way. The SBC's USB-Ethernet connection to the server is simply shared to Wi-Fi devices by the few easy nmcli calls above and spans an own 'management/sensor WiFi'. Next step is consumption measurement. Bad news: The addition of the BCM43438 Wi-Fi/BT module adds significantly to RPi Zero consumption. With same basic setings (turning the Zero headless by adding '/usr/bin/tvservice -o' to /etc/rc.local which saves ~100mW) I get an idle consumption of 560mW. This is ~200mW more compared to earlier measurements with RPi Zero: 

 

 

 

 

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On 12.3.2017 at 5:52 PM, tkaiser said:

With same basic setings (turning the Zero headless by adding '/usr/bin/tvservice -o' to /etc/rc.local which saves ~100mW) I get an idle consumption of 560mW. This is ~200mW more compared to earlier measurements with RPi Zero

 

Time to check the measurements. I used the new Raspbian Lite image still with kernel 4.4.50 on RPi Zero W and now also on my older Zero (using same installation on same SD card) to confirm:

Bildschirmfoto%202017-03-13%20um%2023.20

 

On the normal Zero average consumption is now 380mW according to my setup, so new Zero W 'wastes' 180mW more (still ~560 mW). This is with Raspbian defaults not tweaking BT or Wi-Fi settings. On Zero W I already connected the new 8MP camera before but did not do any camera stuff (good news: just connecting the camera without using it doesn't increase consumption). Next step will be activating the camera and recording HW accelerated encoded h.264 video streams to another device connected through 'USB Ethernet'.

 

The goal is still to remain below 2.5W consumption limitation to be able to power the Zero W from any random USB2 port. I made already some tests with excessive Wi-Fi traffic with Zero W as AP... consumption increased 'a lot' (500mW) but the measurement was wrong anyway (since I use a Banana Pro as 'monitoring PSU' and this board was Wi-Fi client in this setup so an increase in consumption here added to overall reported consumption).

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On 12.3.2017 at 5:52 PM, tkaiser said:

using network-manager of course

Why ?  For a device like a NAS, Camera or Setopbox what is the advantage of having a Network-Mgr ?

 

On 12.3.2017 at 5:52 PM, tkaiser said:

both power the SBC through the USB cable and establish the USB Ethernet gadget connection

So Power and Data flow throuhg one (1) Mircro-USB cable with an USB Type-A connector ?

Then I could attach a Pi Zero to a BPi-R1. The Pi Zero could run a touch-display via USB and HDMI for a Musicplayer for example.

Leaves open the question about the sound-ouput.

 

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1 hour ago, Tido said:

For a device like a NAS, Camera or Setopbox what is the advantage of having a Network-Mgr

 

Pardon? It's 2017 and my life is too short to waste time with wpa_supplicant, hostapd and other anachronisms.

 

Edit: Ouch, just realized that my 'zerowifi' only advertises WPA1 and not RSN/WPA2. Version of network-manager in 'most recent' Raspbian is '0.9.10.0-7' so maybe just too outdated to be useful. Won't investigate further but of course then setting up an AP on Raspbian with nmcli is the wrong way :(

 

1 hour ago, Tido said:

So Power and Data flow throuhg one (1) Mircro-USB cable with an USB Type-A connector ?

 

Yes and the most important part is to use the USB gadget modules over the connection. Armbian uses g_serial with three boards by default to provide a serial console through the Micro USB port for 'first time setup' purposes (NanoPi Air, Orange Pi Lite and Zero), same does Nextthing with their CHIP, no idea why the mythical foundation isn't able to do the same with their Raspberries (for Zero and Zero W this would be the best default setting)

 

And in this case I simply use g_ether so the connected SBC simply appears as an USB Ethernet dongle on the other end of the cable. Nothing new, not specific to Raspberries or even Linux:

 

g_ether_in_action.jpg

 

Further readings:

 

 

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