Programming ESP8266 WiFi Module

Programming

Note : Apparently, Arduino IDE 1.8.5 or below have face problems while flashing the WiFi module. You would repeatedly get below error message. After much troubleshooting, flashing the module from a Fedora machine worked for me. You could try from any linux machine though.

warning: espcomm cmd: didn't receive command response
warning: espcomm_send_command(FLASH_DOWNLOAD_BEGIN) failed

Prepare the IDE

You need to add the ESP8266 board in the Arduino BoardManager. To do that, go to preferences and add http://arduino.esp8266.com/stable/package_esp8266com_index.json in the space provided under Additional Board Manager URLs.

Now go to Tools > Board & select the Generic ESP8266 Module or any other ESP module depending on what you bought and keep all other configuration as default. If your Arduino is connected, go to Tools > Port & select your Arduino.

This project uses a publicly available ESP8266 library :

• ESP8266HTTPClient by Markus Sattler;

To download them, head to Sketch > Include Library > Manage Libraries to see a horde of libraries available. Scroll or search to find the one mentioned above. That's it for the IDE setup - To continue now, you need to prepare the circuitry between your Arduino (in my case UNO) and ESP8266. There may be multiple ways to program the module - I programmed it via the Arduino. Using it as an intermediary to relay the program.