Book Image

Internet of Things with ESP8266

By : Marco Schwartz
Book Image

Internet of Things with ESP8266

By: Marco Schwartz

Overview of this book

The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of objects such as physical things embedded with electronics, software, sensors, and connectivity, enabling data exchange. ESP8266 is a low cost WiFi microcontroller chip that has the ability to empower IoT and helps the exchange of information among various connected objects. ESP8266 consists of networkable microcontroller modules, and with this low cost chip, IoT is booming. This book will help deepen your knowledge of the ESP8266 WiFi chip platform and get you building exciting projects. Kick-starting with an introduction to the ESP8266 chip, we will demonstrate how to build a simple LED using the ESP8266. You will then learn how to read, send, and monitor data from the cloud. Next, you’ll see how to control your devices remotely from anywhere in the world. Furthermore, you’ll get to know how to use the ESP8266 to interact with web services such as Twitter and Facebook. In order to make several ESP8266s interact and exchange data without the need for human intervention, you will be introduced to the concept of machine-to-machine communication. The latter part of the book focuses more on projects, including a door lock controlled from the cloud, building a physical Bitcoin ticker, and doing wireless gardening. You’ll learn how to build a cloud-based ESP8266 home automation system and a cloud-controlled ESP8266 robot. Finally, you’ll discover how to build your own cloud platform to control ESP8266 devices. With this book, you will be able to create and program Internet of Things projects using the ESP8266 WiFi chip.
Table of Contents (20 chapters)
Internet of Things with ESP8266
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Creating a cloud server


We are now going to take the first step towards having the board connected to your own cloud server: creating the server itself.

You could run the software we'll see later on your own computer, but then you won't be able to access your ESP8266 projects remotely. This is why you need to have your own server deployed with a cloud server provider. If you already have such a server capable of running the Meteor application (the framework we are going to use), you can just skip this section.

There are many server providers out there, but the one I recommend is Digital Ocean. They are fast, cheap, and have a very easy-to-use interface. You can find them at:

https://www.digitalocean.com/

Once you are on their website, create a new account. Then, create a new Droplet, which is the name for a server on Digital Ocean. You will be invited to choose where you want to deploy your Droplet (choose whatever is closest to the devices you want to use):

Next, you need to select your monthly...