Harman Patil (Editor)

ESP Easy

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ESP Easy is an free and open source MCU firmware for IoT (Internet of Things). and originally developed by the LetsControlIt.com community (formerly known as ESP8266.nu community. It runs on ESP8266 and ESP32 Wi-Fi based MCU (Micro Controller Unit) platforms for IoT (Internet of Things) from Espressif Systems. The name "ESP Easy" by default refers to the firmware rather hardware which uses this firmware. At a low-level the ESP Easy firmware works the same as the NodeMCU firmware and also provides a very simple operating system on the ESP8266. The main difference between ESP Easy firmware as NodeMCU firmware is that the former is designed as a high-level toolbox that just works out-of-the-box for a pre-defined set of sensors and actuators. Users simply hook-up and read/control over simple web requests without having to write any code at all themselves, including firmware upgrades using OTA (Over The Air) updates.

The ESP Easy firmware can be used to turn ESP modules into an simple multifunction sensor and actuator devices for home automation platforms like Domoticz, OpenHAB, Home Assistant, PiDome, Nodo Telnet, EmonCMS, FHEM, ThingSpeak, Loxone and SmartThings (Samsung). Once the firmware is loaded on the hardware, configuration of the ESP Easy is entirely web interface based for all configuration settings. ESP Easy firmware is primarily used on ESP8266 modules/hardware as a wireless WiFI sensor device with added sensors for temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, LUX, etc. The ESP Easy firmware also offers some low-level actuator functions to control relays.

The firmware is built on the Arduino ESP project which in turn uses many open source projects. Getting started with the ESP Easy takes a few basic steps. In most cases ESP modules come with AT or NodeMCU LUA firmware, and you need to replace the existing firmware with the ESP Easy firmware by flashing the hardware with a (Windows only) flashtool to use it.

ESP8266 Arduino Core

As Arduino.cc began developing new MCU boards based on non-AVR processors like the ARM/SAM MCU and used in the Arduino Due, they needed to modify the Arduino IDE so that it would be relatively easy to change the IDE to support alternate tool chains to allow Arduino C/C++ to be compiled down to these new processors. They did this with the introduction of the Board Manager and the SAM Core. A "core" is the collection of software components required by the Board Manager and the Arduino IDE to compile an Arduino C/C++ source file down to the target MCU's machine language. Some creative ESP8266 enthusiasts have developed an Arduino core for the ESP8266 WiFi SoC that is available at the GitHub ESP8266 Core webpage. This is what is popularly called the "ESP8266 Core for the Arduino IDE" and it has become one of the leading software development platforms for the various ESP8266 based modules and development boards, including NodeMCUs. For more information on all things ESP8266, check out the ESP8266 Community Forum on GitHub.

References

ESP Easy Wikipedia