Book Image

ESP8266 Internet of Things Cookbook

By : Marco Schwartz
Book Image

ESP8266 Internet of Things Cookbook

By: Marco Schwartz

Overview of this book

The ESP8266 Wi-Fi Module is a self contained System on Chip (SOC) with an integrated TCP/IP protocol stack and can give any microcontroller access to your Wi-Fi network. It is capable of either hosting an application or offloading all Wi-Fi networking functions from another application processor. This book contains practical recipes that will help you master all ESP8266 functionalities. You will start by configuring and customizing the chip in line with your requirements. Then you will focus on core topics such as on-board processing, sensors, GPIOs, programming, networking, integration with external components, and so on. We will also teach you how to leverage Arduino using the ESP8266 and you'll learn about its libraries, file system, OTA updates, and so on. The book also provide recipes on web servers, testing, connecting with the cloud, and troubleshooting techniques. Programming aspects include MicroPython and how to leverage it to get started with the ESP8266. Towards the end, we will use these concepts and create an interesting project (IOT). By the end of the book, readers will be proficient enough to use the ESP8266 board efficiently.
Table of Contents (15 chapters)
ESP8266 Internet of Things Cookbook
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Customer Feedback
Preface
Index

Discovering the filesystem of the ESP8266


One of the advantages that the ESP8266 has over most other IoT boards is the ability to store files in its flash memory. You can store configuration files, sketch data, and even content for a web server in the flash memory. In this recipe, we will learn about the architecture of the flash memory and the filesystem as a whole. This will enable us to know how to properly store and retrieve data in and from it.

Flash memory

In most microcontroller architectures, the flash memory is used as the main storage media. Configuration files, firmware, and application data are all stored in it. The flash memory allows random writes and reads and it can only be erased in blocks at a time. Moreover, it can only be erased a specific number of times (between 100,000 and 1,000,000 times) before it fails.

In the Arduino environment, the flash memory is laid out in a specific way, as shown in the following screenshot. This is to ensure proper memory use and maintenance...