First some context. I’ve been working on hacking my electronic dog door. I will show the complete hack later on. But part of the project is to start connecting things to the internet so that I can monitor and control them remotely. The dog door might seem like a somewhat rediculious example of an item that needs to be connected to the internet of things. But no one wants their dog having accidents in the house. By tracking and notifying me of when the dog goes in and out it could help avoid a problem, like if the door stopped working and the dog is forced to “go” indoors. And it’s a test case. Out of necessity it is the first item I’m working on. But eventually I will have lights and door locks and other things controllable from my phone.
There is a TON of noise on the web about the ESP8622 and all of it’s flavors. I don’t want to rehash detail that is already out there. But for my own record and so I can reference back here later, and to help others avoid the same pitfalls, I’ll quickly cover my experience setting up the tiny wifi module.