ESP8266 Bridge

The ESP Bridge project was a very fun and educational process. The goal of the project was to design a way to remotely interface with any number of future projects.

The primary component was an ESP8266 microcontroller with Wi-Fi capabilities. This device acted as a gateway to other micro-controllers attached to an SPI network.

The ESP8266 was programmed with a restful interface, that included a web page with JavaScript that would display available wireless networks, and enable the user to connect the device to one.

Additionally, the REST API allowed attached microcontrollers to be addressed directly for the purposes of collecting data or controlling outputs.

Finally, functionality for alerting was introduced, which would enable an attached microcontroller to notify the ESP8266 of an event, so that the ESP8266 could reach out to a configured server for follow-up.

One follow-up project for the ESP Bridge was a garden monitoring setup.

This was an Arduino Nano attached to a lamp and pump as well as soil moisture, temperature/humidity, and IR/Visible/UV light sensor.

The Arduino had an address on the SPI network, and each sensor reading was given a different polling address.

I then programmed a general-use application in PHP that allowed me to enroll an ESP Bridge device, and add configuration for commands available through an ESP Bridge.

My little garden monitoring setup was polled at regular intervals by the server. The data was logged, and when conditions were met, the server sent follow-up commands to turn on the light or run the pump.

All in all, it was a successful project, and I learned a lot from it.