{"id":20,"date":"2019-02-16T15:21:32","date_gmt":"2019-02-16T15:21:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/archicode.be\/?p=20"},"modified":"2019-02-16T15:21:32","modified_gmt":"2019-02-16T15:21:32","slug":"esp8266-the-iot-prototyping-graal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archicode.be\/index.php\/2019\/02\/16\/esp8266-the-iot-prototyping-graal\/","title":{"rendered":"Esp8266 – the IOT prototyping Graal"},"content":{"rendered":"
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1. A Esp-01 (the most basic of all the Esp8266)<\/i><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n

I’ve been working for some time now with IOT and I’ve worked extensively with the Esp8266 chip just because I’m testing a lot of stuff and don’t want to spend a lot of money in it.<\/p>\n\n

You can get these small WiFi chips at very reasonable prices like these<\/a> on Aliexpress for example. The main reason beside their price about why Esp8266 are so interesting is because along with their WiFi capabilities, they are fully programmable like arduinos and there are countless of libraries available for them, not the least the set of libraries allowing you to connect to Azure IOT Hub. That’s what we are going to do in this post.<\/p>\n\n

Pre-requisite : To make this work you need to have an Azure IOT hub ready. If you don’t have one already, you can check this Microsoft Docs to create one : <\/i><\/strong>https:\/\/docs.microsoft.com\/en-us\/azure\/iot-hub\/quickstart-send-telemetry-dotnet<\/a><\/i><\/strong><\/i><\/p>\n\n

Remarks : In this tutorial I will be using Visual Studio Code but you can use Arduino IDE directly if you want. The main reason I’m using Visual Studio Code is because of the dark theme (I just love it).<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n\n

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2. See what I mean?<\/i><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n

Starting blocks<\/h1>\n\n

If you’re not already familiar with working with arduinos, you need to know that a typical Arduino program contains two main methods : setup() and loop().<\/p>\n\n

The setup() method is executed once when the device starts up. The loop() method is executed continuously in an infinite loop until the device stops (by turning it off yourself or a power failure, etc\u2026)<\/p>\n\n

void setup() { } void loop() { }<\/code><\/pre>\n\n
The Esp8266 can be programmed as any Arduino and to do so, you need first the Arduino IDE that you can download here : https:\/\/www.arduino.cc\/en\/Main\/Software<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n
You can find here everything you need to configure the Arduino IDE to program the Esp8266 : https:\/\/github.com\/esp8266\/Arduino<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n
Once this is done, you can, if you want to use the same environment as I do in this post, download Visual Studio Code here : https:\/\/code.visualstudio.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n
You can then download the Arduino extension in the Visual Studio Code and configuring accordingly (going into settings to specify the path to the Arduino IDE) to make this work.<\/p>\n\n
Coding<\/h1>\n\n
In this tutorial, we’re not going to use any sensor, we’re just going to send dummy data as the aim here is to help you connect the Esp8266 to Azure IOT Hub so whether or not we have a sensor is irrelevant.<\/p>\n\n
Libraries<\/h2>\n\n
The first thing we need are the libraries. Without them, you can either code everything by yourself and reinvent the wheel (which can be very fulfilling I can imagine), or you can just prepare yourself to give up. Whatever you decide, just use the libraries.<\/p>\n\n
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3. The Arduino Library Manager as seen in Visual Studio Code<\/i><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n
You need to go to the library manager and download the following :<\/p>\n\n