As I said in a previous post I was looking for a project to keep me busy for a few weeks while I have been separated from my regular tool-kit and components collection. I had been giving some thought to IoT/smart home related projects so decided to focus on that area. A bit of searching got me onto ESP8266 chips and some related boards.

What is ESP8266?

Basically it’s a programmable system-on-chip (SOC), like an Arduino but with built in WiFi and heaps of memory.

• they have built in WiFi
• they have a ton of memory compared to the Arduino boards (well the small ones anyway, like Nano and Pro)
• they have a bunch of pins to connect to sensors, displays etc.
• they are cheap
• they are tiny
• you have a few choices for development tools
  • Arduino IDE (C++)
  • NodeMCU using Lua – That’s what I am using in this blog
  • MicroPython
  • AT commands
  • ???? Probably more I don’t know about
• they are shiny