ESP8266 Pinout, Datasheet, Features & Applications
Hello friends! Hope you are doing well. Today, we will have a look at the detailed
Introduction to ESP8266 WiFi module. ESP8266 is a very low-cost & user-friendly WiFi module, which develops a simple TCP/IP connection and can easily be interfaced with microcontrollers via Serial Port. The first chip in this series was ESP-01 which gained sheer attention in the market.
In this tutorial, we will discuss the ESP8266 WiFi module along with its pinout, features, specifications, applications and datasheet. Let's dive in and nail down everything related to this device.
ESP8266 WiFi Module
- ESP8266 (also called ESP8266 Wireless Transceiver) is a cost-effective, easy-to-operate, compact-sized & low-powered WiFi module, designed by Espressif Systems, that supports both TCP/IP and Serial Protocol.
- It's normally used in IOT cloud-based embedded projects and is considered the most widely used WiFi module because of its low cost and small size.
- It runs at an operating voltage of 3V and can handle a maximum voltage of around 3.6 V, so an external logic level converter is required if you are using 5V supply.
- ESP8266 WiFi module can easily be interfaced with microcontrollers board (i.e. Arduino UNO) via Serial Port.
- There are numerous breakout boards available based on ESP8266 WiFi Module (i.e. ESP8266 NodeMCU V3).
- Beause of its compact size, its mostly used in autonomous projects (i.e. Robotics).
- Other than ESP8266, "Espressif Systems" has designed many other ESP WiFi modules, few of them are shown in below figure:
Now let's have a look at the ESP8266 Pinout, necessary for interfacing with microcontrollers.
ESP8266 Pinout
- ESP8266 Pinout consists of 8 pins in total, which are given in below table along with their operation:
| ESP8266 Pinout
|
| No. |
Pin Name |
Working |
| 1 |
RX |
Serial Receiver Pin |
| 2 |
Vcc |
Power Pin (+3.3 V; can handle up to 3.6 V) |
| 3 |
GPIO 0 |
General-purpose I/O No. 0 |
| 4 |
RST |
Reset |
| 5 |
CH_PD |
Chip power-down |
| 6 |
GPIO 2 |
General-purpose I/O No. 2 |
| 7 |
TX |
Serial Transmitter Pin |
| 8 |
GND |
Ground |
- Each pin comes with a specific function associated with it where Vcc and GND are voltage source and ground respectively.
- RX and TX are used for communication where TX is dedicated for data transmission and RX is used receiving data.
ESP8266 Datasheet
- You can download ESP8266 Datasheet by clicking the below button:
Download ESP8266 Datasheet
ESP8266 Features
- It is also known as a system-on-chip (SoC) and comes with a 32-bit Tensilica microcontroller, antenna switches, RF balun, power amplifier, standard digital peripheral interfaces, low noise receive amplifier, power management module and filter capability.
- The processor is based on Tensilica Xtensa Diamond Standard 106Micro and runs at 80 MHz.
- It incorporates 64 KiB boot ROM, 80 KiB user data RAM and 32 KiB instruction RAM.
- It supports Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n around 2.4 GHz and other features including 16 GPIO, Inter-Integrated Circuit (I²C), Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI), 10-bit ADC, and I²S interfaces with DMA.
- External QSPI flash memory is accessed through SPI and supports up to 16 MiB and 512 KiB to 4 MiB is initially included in the module.
- It is a major development in terms of wireless communication with little circuitry. and contains onboard regulator that helps in providing 3.3V consistent power to the board.
- It supports APSD which makes it an ideal choice for VoIP applications and Bluetooth interfaces.
How to Power Up the Module
- You can power up the device with PC port using USB to Serial adaptor. The 2 AA and LIPO batteries are equally handy for powering up the device.
- It is advised to not power this device directly with 5V dev board. Doing so can severely affect the quality and overall performance of the device.
ESP8266 NodeMCU
- There are numerous breakout boards designed by different companies, based on this ESP8266 WiFi module.
- Among these breakout boards, ESP8266 NodeMCU is the most popular one.
- Here's the Pinout Diagram of ESP8266 NodeMCU:
ESP8266 Projects & Applications
ESP8266 WiFi module is widely used in embedded projects and thus brings WiFi capability. Here's few ESP8266 Projects & Applications:
- Wireless Web Server
- Geolocation using ESP8266
- Pressure Sensors on Railway Tracks
- Air Pollution Meter
- Temperature logging system
- World’s smallest IoT project
- Wi-Fi controlled robot
- Humidity and temperature monitoring
- M2M using ESP8266
That's all for today. I hope I have given you everything you needed to know regarding this WiFi module. If you are unsure or have any question, you can ask me in the comment section below. I'd love to help you in any way I can. You are most welcome to keep us updated with your suggestions so we keep providing quality work that resonates with your needs and demands. Thanks for reading the article.