Re: WiFi range ...

On Thu, 6 Aug 2026 13:01:13 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

> I bough ten 2040 based modules fro alixepress for about $10
> 
> Essentially pi Pico with no wireless and less pins
> 
> https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006024307280.html

They're about $10 apiece on Amazon. AliExpress go hit by the US de minimis 
ruling. Even before that I didn't use them. I briefly sniffed at STM32 and 
many people reported AliExpress 'Black Pill' boards definitely were black 
pills. 

Not boards, but I'd ordered Photon Micro Lights from Amazon. Some were 
very crude Chinese knockoffs. Even the Phillip screw heads looked like 
they'd been chewed in by a gerbil. When I contacted Amazon they reversed 
the charges and said to not bother returning the product. That vendor 
vanished. I imaging AliExpress's response would be 'Not our problem.'

It has been a mystery to me. China can obviously do excellent work but 
some Chinese knockoffs have the appearance of the product they are 
imitating but are crap. At what point does the manufacturing cost of crap 
versus doing a little better job make sense?