ESP8266

File:NodeMCU-Board.jpg

Typical NodeMCU development board, carrying an ESP8266-12E chip in addition to a voltage regulator and an USB/UART bridge for easy programming

ESP8266 was initially intended as a serial port to wifi bridge, but can also be used as standalone microcontroller. There is even support for Arduino IDE.

Development Boards

In order to get used to the ESP8266, it is a good idea to get a development board. These boards contain a pre-soldered ESP8266, access to the GPIO pins and usually a USB connector which can be used to communicate with the ESP8266 and supply it with power.

Wemos D1 Mini

The Wemos D1 mini is a low-cost microcontroller PCB featuring an ESP8266.

It uses a CH340 USB serial converter.

Bootup GPIO state

D0	D1	D2	D3	D4	D5	D6	D7	D8	A0	RX	TX
LOW	LOW	LOW	HIGH	HIGH	LOW	LOW	LOW	LOW	LOW	HIGH	HIGH

Firmware Options

AT firmware, turning the ESP8266 into a serial/wifi bridge
NodeMCU firmware, allowing Lua programming
Arduino port (documentation), using the popular Arduino/C programming language
MicroPython firmware
Basic firmware

Development Tools

ESPlorer integrated development environment mostly useful for AT, Lua and MicroPython development
Arduino integrated development environment
ESPtool Python package
PlatformIO

Advanced Hacking

If you just need a superfast cheap microcontroller without wifi, check out nodsk8266.

Links