ESP Wifi Projects

[last updated: 2021-09-28]
ESP32 & ESP8266 home page
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• Source Material:
  Most of what's here came from:
  https://randomnerdtutorials.com (RNT)
  Great resources. Huge amount of excellent material to wade through.
  Troubleshooting somewhat lacking as such resources are.

• Initial project is to get two ESP8266's to communicate with each other via wifi but without connecting to a router.
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• First task is to find the mfr-assigned MAC address of my boards.
  • MAC = Media Access Control
    Every device has a unique MAC Address.
    The address is of the form:
        C4:5B:BE:55:36:CE
        That is, 6 groups of 2 hex digits, separated by colons
    For two devices to talk to each other, they must know each others' MAC address

  • RNT has an Arduino sketch to find it:
    • https://randomnerdtutorials.com/get-change-esp32-esp8266-mac-address-ard...
    • #include "ESP8266WiFi.h"
      void setup(){
      Serial.begin(115200);
      Serial.println();
      Serial.print("ESP Board MAC Address: ");
      Serial.println(WiFi.macAddress());
      } // -------------- END setup --------------

    • Library Problems:
      • The RNT sketch needs WiFi.h or ESP8266.h, neither of which were in my system.
        • per RNT (https://randomnerdtutorials.com/esp32-useful-wi-fi-functions-arduino/):
          "This library is automatically “installed” when you install the ESP32 add-on in your Arduino IDE.
          If you don’t have the ESP32 installed, you can follow the next tutorial:...
          Installing the ESP32 Board in Arduino IDE (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux)"
          Add to File-Preferences:
          https://raw.githubusercontent.com/espressif/arduino-esp32/gh-pages/packa...
          However: could not get this to work. May require fresh install of the IDE since I've been doing so much juggling with the library folder.

        • Searched Google for "WiFi.h Arduino library"
          Found on github: https://github.com/arduino-libraries/WiFi
          Code - Code - Download Zip
          Would not compile:
          WiFi.mode command not defined
          WiFi.macAddress not defined

        • Found another WiFi.h from github/espressif/arduino-esp32. Manually copied into my libraries folder.
          • While the WiFi errors from above were cleared,
            it still did not compile:
            IPv6Address.h not found
            • Found same in arduino-esp and copied into my libraries folder:
            • Would not compile: needs esp_wifi_types.h
              • copied arduino-esp32/tools/sdk/esp32/include/esp_wifi
              • Would not compile: needs esp_event_base.h
          • A diversion:
            Since all these libraries that I need are part of arduino-esp32, I tried
            copying the entire arduino-esp32 folder into my libraries folder, then #include "arduino-esp32"
            but it would not compile, "no such file of directory" ???

      • Installed these from the board manager:
        ESP8266 from ESP8266Community
        and ESP32 from Espressif
      • Added these to File - Preferences:
        http://arduino.esp8266.com/stable/package_esp8266com_index.json,
        https://raw.githubusercontent.com/espressif/arduino-esp32/gh-pages/packa...

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• wifi mode:
  • The ESP can be used in 3 modes:
    • AP mode
    • Station mode
          WiFi.mode(WIFI_STA);
    • Both

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