What is NodeMCU ?

What is NodeMCU ?

NodeMCU is an open source IoT platform. It includes firmware which runs on the ESP8266 Wi-Fi SoC from Espressif Systems, and hardware which is based on the ESP-12 module. ... It is based on the eLua project, and built on the Espressif Non-OS SDK for ESP8266. It uses many open source projects, such as lua-cjson and SPIFFS.

ESP8266 is a low-cost, WiFi Module chip that can be configured to connect to the Internet for Internet of Things(IoT) and similar Technology Projects.

Basically, Your normal Electrical and Mechanical equipments cannot connect to the Internet on their own. They don’t have the in-built setup to do so.

You can setup ESP8266 with these equipments and do amazing stuff. Controlling, Monitoring, Analysis and much more.

NodeMCU is a Firmware on ESP8266. Its basically an SoC (System on Chip)

A System on a Chip or System on Chip(SoC) is an integrated circuit that integrates all components of a computer or other electronic systems.

How to start with NodeMCU?

NodeMCU Development board is featured with wifi capability, analog pin, digital pins and serial communication protocols.

To get start with using NodeMCU for IoT applications first we need to know about how to write/download NodeMCU firmware in NodeMCU Development Boards. And before that where this NodeMCU firmware will get as per our requirement.

There is online NodeMCU custom builds available using which we can easily get our custom NodeMCU firmware as per our requirement.

NodeMCU is a complete environment of hardware and software for IoT prototyping based on the Lua language. You can connect NodeMCU to your computer through a standard USB interface for power, programming, and debugging. Before using NodeMCU V1.0 for the first time, install the requisite USB driver (CP210x) on the operating system of your computer:
Download it from: http://www.silabs.com/products/mcu/

Now you can test your NodeMCU in Lua shell. As this calls for an appropriate terminal software, download PuTTY onto your computer: http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/latest.html

Next, connect NodeMCU, run PuTTY to enter its Lua shell, and enter the test code to test the onboard LED in NodeMCU (also see following images). If everything is okay, you should able to connect NodeMCU with PuTTY, enter Lua shell, and test the on/off functions of the onboard blue indicator. If NodeMCU has no response in the PuTTY terminal, try to press the RST button on NodeMCU.

> gpio.mode(0, gpio.OUTPUT)
> gpio.write(0, gpio.HIGH)
> print(gpio.read(0))
1
> gpio.write(0, gpio.LOW)
> print(gpio.read(0))
0
>

This simple tutorial will show you how to use NodeMCU V1.0 for the first time. The steps are pretty simple to follow and should get your NodeMCU board running in less than 15 minutes. In upcoming articles, I will adapt new design ideas to implant NodeMCU at the heart of fascinating IoT systems. See you all in succeeding projects.