Networking with the esp8266
The ESP 8266 was the first low cost Wi-Fi microchip with a full TCP/IP stack and a micro controller capability that was available to makers in August 2014. It uses simple TCP/IP connections using Hayes-style commands. It´s produced by the Chinese company Espressif Systems.
ESP 8266 Pin Out
Features:
- Processor: L106 32-bit RISC microprocessor core based on the Tensilica Xtensa Diamond Standard 106Micro running at 80 MHz[5]
- Memory: 32 KiB instruction RAM 32 KiB instruction cache RAM 80 KiB user-data RAM 16 KiB ETS system-data RAM External QSPI flash: up to 16 MiB is supported (512 KiB to 4 MiB typically included)
- IEEE 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi Integrated TR switch, balun, LNA, power amplifier and matching network WEP or WPA/WPA2 authentication, or open networks
- 17 GPIO pins[6]
- SPI
- I²C (software implementation)
- I²S interfaces with DMA (sharing pins with GPIO
- UART on dedicated pins, plus a transmit-only UART can be enabled on GPIO2
- 10-bit ADC (successive approximation ADC)
The ESP8266 can be connected in different modes: Station Mode, Soft Access Mode, Client Mode and Station and Client Mode.
Station Mode
It connects to a Wi- Fi network provided by a Router.
Soft Access Point
It generates a Wi-Fi access to another devises. It´s called Soft Access because it doesn't´t have an interface to log in or to program the network.
Client
It can access private services trough servers to send, receive or process data.
Server
Provides services and functions to another clients.
Station + Soft Access Point Mode
Thing Speak
At the end I connected my sensor to the internet trough Thing Speak that is an IoT analytics platform service that allows you to aggregate, visualize, and analyze live data streams in the cloud. You can send data to Thing Speak from your devices, create instant visualization of live data, and send alerts.
The process is easy but you have to put attention whit the numbers and the connections. I use a ESP8832 Wifi sensor to connect to the internet.