Kenny Friedman, Week 13

Networking and Communication

Picking a Protocol

This week, the goal was to explore networking and communication.

At first, it seems like Bluetooth could be very interesting. However, Bluetooth - even real, purchased devices - can be laughably hard to connect, even when they work properly. So I decided to use something that is considered more reliable in practice: wifi.

Wifi Chip

I used the ESP8266 chip. It was supringly easy to get set up (or maybe I just got better at milling, soldering, and debugging).

The chip doesn't require a separate motherboard (or ATTiny style chip), and the only things needed to solder - besides the chip - were a couple capacitors, a regulator, and an FTDI input for the FTDI cable.

Success on the first try!

Wi-Fi Photos