Add Internet to your next project with an adorable, bite-sized WiFi microcontroller, at a price you like! The ESP8266 processor from Espressif is an 80 MHz microcontroller with a full WiFi front-end (both as client and access point) and TCP/IP stack with DNS support as well. While this chip has been very popular, its also been very difficult to use. Most of the low cost modules are not breadboard friendly, don’t have an onboard 500mA 3.3V regulator or level shifting, and aren’t CE or FCC emitter certified….UNTIL NOW!
The Adafruit HUZZAH ESP8266 breakout is what we designed to make working with this chip super easy and a lot of fun. We took a certified module with an onboard antenna, and plenty of pins, and soldered it onto our designed breakout PCBs. We added in:
Reset button,
User button that can also put the chip into bootloading mode,
Red LED you can blink,
Level shifting on the UART and reset pin,
3.3V out, 500mA regulator (you’ll want to assume the ESP8266 can draw up to 250mA so budget accordingly)
Two diode-protected power inputs (one for a USB cable, another for a battery)
Two parallel, breadboard-friendly breakouts on either side give you access to:
1 x Analog input (1.0V max)
9 x GPIO (3.3V logic), which can also be used for I2C or SPI
2 x UART pins
2 x 3-6V power inputs, reset, enable, LDO-disable, 3.3V output
One breakout at the end has an “FTDI” pinout so you can plug in an FTDI or console cable to upload software and read/write debugging information via the UART. When you’re done with your coding, remove the cable, and this little module can be embeded into your project box.
