View source for ESP8266

= IoThursday =
The ESP8266 has been discussed quite a bit in the regular [[IoThursday]] meetings.

= ESP8266 =

The ESP8266 is a microcontroller that has WiFi built in, making it a great starting device for all things IoT.

== Getting Started ==
A section for useful information on getting started with an ESP8266 module

=== Modules ===
A subsection to explain the different modules and what differs between them

=== NodeMCU v2 ===

An open hardware board (costing about £3.50) that combines the ESP-12-E core (32Mbits(4MBytes) flash) with a CP2102 USB-UART so you can connect it directly to a PC USB with a standard USB micro cable. It comes flashed with a Lua core but that can easily be replaced with an Arduino core with all the Lua core features plus anything vanilla that works with Arduino.

* Official site: http://nodemcu.com/index_cn.html
* Open hardware schematics, PCB layouts, Gerbers, etc: https://github.com/nodemcu/nodemcu-devkit-v1.0
* NB: hype of version numbers when sold by various sellers on ebay! See http://frightanic.com/iot/comparison-of-esp8266-nodemcu-development-boards/ for the lowdown at time of writing.
* Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NodeMCU
* Michael's initial investigations page at [[NodeMCU_v2]]

=== Connecting to an ESP8266 module ===

What you'll need:
# An ESP8266 module with
# A breadboard and suitable cables
# A USB to TTL Serial adapter
# A computer to connect to the ESP8266 with

=== Firmware ===
A subsection to explain the different firmwares available for the ESP8266 and how they differ

Page with links to different firmwares http://www.electrodragon.com/w/Category:ESP8266_Firmware_and_SDK

==== Espressif ====
The default firmware

Article describing the process of re-flashing firmware http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/projects/update-the-firmware-in-your-esp8266-wi-fi-module/

Current RTOS SDK Latest Version: 1.4.0 Release date: Feb 28, 2016 http://bbs.espressif.com/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=1827

Firmware flash download tools (version 2.4 at 31 Mar 31 2016) http://bbs.espressif.com/viewtopic.php?f=57&t=433

==== NodeMCU ====
Uses the Lua scripting/programming language to control the ESP8266

Page describing the process for flashing NodeMCU firmware into a device, with links to Flasher programs for Win32 and Win64 http://randomnerdtutorials.com/flashing-nodemcu-firmware-on-the-esp8266-using-windows/

===== Programming =====

There are a couple of different programs that can be used to upload code and files to an ESP8266 with NodeMCU firmware:

#[[http://benlo.com/esp8266/ LuaLoader]]
#[[http://esp8266.ru/esplorer/ ESPlorer]]

==== Arduino ====
An Arduino based firmware.

== Projects ==
A section for Hackspace members to fill up with links to their ESP8266 related projects

* Michael's [[Status_Boards]] project for Hackspace infrastructure status reporting
* Toby's [[WiFi-enabled Banjo]]