Let's get started!

The starter kit consists of:

• ESPresso Lite V2 board
• OLED screen
• DHT22 digital humidity & temperature sensor

The ESPresso Lite V2.0 can be used as a 'bare board' or best together with additional components such as the 0.96" OLED display or a DHT22 digital temperature and humidity sensor as an IoT starter kit.

It is advisable to secure the board onto a breadboard for stability while working with the component.

You can use either FTDI cable or UC00A USB to UART converter to upload your program from your PC or just simply to power the board.

You can use power from 3x AA/AAA batteries (4.5V), powerbanks (5V) or simply from your PC/laptop USB port (5V).

We recommend using the Arduino IDE to program and upload the sketches to the ESPresso Lite. The Arduino IDE can be downloaded from https://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/Software

*While the Arduino 1.6.10 is the latest, we recommend using version 1.6.9 (or later version) if you encounter any problems compiling the codes.

1. Download the Arduino Interactive Development Environment (IDE)

• Install Arduino 1.6.9 https://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/Software

• Start Arduino and open Preferences window.

2. Install the Arduino core for ESP8266 (WROOM-02)

• Enter http://arduino.esp8266.com/stable/package_esp8266com_index.json into Additional Board Manager URLs field. 

• Open Board Manager from Tools > Board > Board Manager and then install esp8266 by ESP8266 Community (current version is 2.2.0*) by clicking on it.

• From menu Tools > Board select ESPresso Lite 2.0

3. Install dependency for ESPresso Lite V2.0 board

Open Library Manager (menu Sketch > Include Library > Manage Libraries…) then install the following libraries

• ESPert by Jimmy (current version 1.2.6)
• Adafruit NeoPixel by Adafruit (current version 1.0.5)
• ArduinoJson by Benoit Blanchon (current version 5.6.1)
• DHT sensor library by Adafruit (current version 1.2.3)
• ESP8266 Oled Driver for SSD1306 display by Daniel Eichborn (current version 3.0.0-)
• HttpClient by Adrian McEwen (current version 2.2.0)
• PubSubClient by Nick O'Leary (current version 2.6.0)

4. Upload the default factory sketch "_2000_ESPert_workshop" from the ESPert examples

To follow the tutorial provided in the guide, please upload the default factory sketch.

Go to File > Examples > ESPert >_2000_ESPert_workshop and upload the sketch.

The ESPresso Lite V2 is an Arduino-compatible Wi-Fi enabled microcontroller. To put it simply, it uses the same Arduino IDE (programming environment) like how anyone would to program their own Arduino board.

Like the Arduino board, the ESPresso Lite V2 has similar pins e.g. digital pins number 0 - 16 (see the pins shaded in brown)

Note that some on-board components share the same pin outs as some of the I/O pins. For example,

• the (light-emitting diode) LED is shared with pin 2
• the push button switches are shared with pin 0 and pin 13 

You can connect sensors or actuators with the help of jumper wires directly to the pin out of the ESPresso Lite V2 board. Take note that some pins have special characteristics built-in:

• Pin 12, 13 & 15 are pulse-width-modulation (PWM) pins. This means that the pin output can mimic an analog output (giving out a range of values from 0-1023)
• Pin 14 (CLK),12 (MISO),13 (MOSI) and 15 (CS) are serial peripheral interface (SPI) bus compliant. This allows the board to be connected to multiple sensors via daisy chain configuration.
• Pin 4 & 5 are part of an inter-intergrated circuit (I2C) protocol like SPI except that it uses less wires (only 2 compared to SPI's 4 wire config).

From time to time, you will see diagrams produced by Fritzing, an open-source electronic circuit design tool. You will also see some examples contributed by various users who have been actively contributing their resources to the open-source community e.g. Chiang Mai Maker Club.

The Fritzing diagram provides a brief illustration showing how the hardware and components are to be connected. Sometimes not all the physical hardware used as shown in the diagram. For instance, it is assumed that ALL the ESPresso Lite board in the Fritzing diagrams used are already connected to the a power source via the FTDI-compatible (e.g. UC00A) USB-Serial converter cable at pins DTR, TX, RX, Vin, CTS & GND. The omission from the Fritzing diagram is to make it easier to read especially for novice learners.

To set up and use the Arduino IDE to upload the sketch codes into the ESPresso Lite V2 board, please refer to http://www.espressolite.com/arduino-ide for details. 

More information about setting up your first cloud account and getting started using the ESPresso Lite can be found here: http://www.espressolite.com/espresso-lite-v2-0