Building Connected Things with Windows 10 IoT and Microsoft Azure

ESP8266 Workshop: Getting Started

This is a step-by-step guide to preparing your computer for the Thingy for Windows IoT Workshop.

Table of Contents

Preparing for the ESP8266 IoT Labs

The labs in this series build on each other to enable you to prototype your own Internet of Things (IoT) devices. In this lab you will use the Lua to build software than runs on the ESP8266.

Bill of Materials

In this lab series you will need the following:

  1. Microsoft Azure IoT Starter Kit w/ Adafruit Feather HUZZAH

Each lab will specify which components will be used. See the Bill of Materials section at the beginning of each lab.

Install ESPlorer

Please install ESPlorer, source is available from github: ESPLorer Source. This is the primary tool you will use to program the ESP8266, but first we have to do some preparation.

Download Esplorer›

Download and Install Python, esptool.py

  1. Install Python 2.7 for your platform. Python 2.7 for Windows Python 2.7 for Mac
  2. Once done, install esptool by doing the following: pip install esptool

Assemble the Parts

Insert the Huzzah Feather carefully into the prototyping board, attach the usb cable to the board and your computer.

Assembled Parts

NOTE: We do not have a battery in our kit!

Download and Burn the firmware to your ESP8266

  1. Install Serial Drivers for the Huzzah Feather. Windows Mac Linux
  2. Plug in the ESP8266 into an open USB port using the cable
  3. Identify the USB Port, for me (on OS X) it’s: /dev/tty.SLAB_USBtoUART
  4. Download the firmware for the ESP8266 ESP8266 ThingLabs Firmware
  5. Burn the firmware first, using

esptool.py -p /dev/tty.SLAB_USBtoUART write_flash 0x00000 nodemcu-float.bin

This is what you should see if it’s successfully putting your firmware on the ESP8266:

Output while successfully burning firmware.

Afterwards, hit the reset button to load up the new firmware.

Create a Microsoft Azure Trial Account

In this lab series you will use Microsoft Azure as the cloud backend for your IoT solution. If you don’t already have an Azure account, go to https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/free-trial/ to start a free trial of Microsoft Azure. You may need a credit card for identity verification, but the trial is completely free. If you have an MSDN Subscription you may be eligible for free credits to Microsoft Azure every month. Check your MSDN account page for details.

Conclusion & Next Steps

In this lab you prepared your development machine for the following labs. Next, you will learn about how the ESP8266 uses the Lua programming language to create a tiny application development environment.

Go to ‘Hello, Lua IoT!’ ›