The ESP8266 is an incredible little module produced by Expressif. It combines a little processor with a WiFi chip that can act as both a client to an existing wifi network, or as an access point to create its own network. At around $2 it is as “cheap as chips”!
I saw an excellent example of using a variant called the ESP-01 to run a remote e-ink display, along with the code to run this in Python. Whilst it was very attractive and had lots of function, it did not meet some of my earlier requirements of being low-powered as the ESP8266 chips still require about 70mA of current to run. So I could not run a battery powered system on this for long, although the simplicity of the setup surprised me in how easy it was to get the demo program working.
I used a few websites to get started, preferring to connect to the ESP-01 using a CP2102 UART – USB module which I already had (and could set to either 5V or 3.3V – the ESP8266 uses only 3.3V). Once connected using the appropriate bits of wire and remembering that Tx-Rx and Rx-Tx on either board, I then had to set the ESP-01 into station mode, connect to my wifi locally, and start the server. Commands were roughly:
- AT+GMR, to get the firmware version
- AT+CWMODE=1
- AT+CWJAP=”ssid”,”password”
- AT+CIPMUX=1
- AT+CIPSERVER=1,3333
… but see the sites referenced to better understand these modem commands and how the embedded server works. I like this chip and I’m going to order a few more just to have if I later want to wifi-enable more projects.
Links
- http://land-boards.com/blwiki/index.php?title=ESP-BKOUT
- http://www.instructables.com/id/Getting-Started-With-the-ESP8266-ESP-01/?ALLSTEPS
- http://www.esp8266.com/wiki/doku.php?id=getting-started-with-the-esp8266
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