The use of the ESP8266 in the world of IoT

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By ajw85
#55801 Greetings,

I am trying to make a system comprised of 4 esp8266s connected to sensors which then communicate to 1 esp8266 acting as a server connected to a LCD screen. I'm using Wemos D1 mini's as my esp8266 board of choice.

I have failed miserably at this.

I initially wanted to do websockets along with the LCD screen, so a person could use a smartphone with the server's site open as a screen if desired. I have all the sketches developed in the arduino IDE, obviously not the most efficient programming, but it works (*should work).

While trying to put this together, I've struggled with the reliability of the esp8266 as an access point. I've also struggled with the esp8266s connecting to eachother with websockets.

As I've flashed code over and over to the esp8266, I've run into other weird issues, like the multiple APs shown from the esp8266, restarts, etc.

Is the esp8266 robust enough to do what I want and I am just not running the right code? Do you guys have examples of a working system like this? Should I move to NRF24L01s?
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By ajw85
#56027 I have played around with the Wemos D1 mini board over the past few days.

I can verify that the Wemos D1 can be used as a WebSockets client connecting to a WebSockets server.
The Wemos D1 connected to my TPLink router and accessed a WebSockets server example running on a local Raspberry Pi.

I cannot get the Wemos D1 WebSockets client to connect to another Wemos D1 WebSockets server. The client will connect to the AP just fine but will not establish the WS connection.
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By ajw85
#56050 Now I am struggling with the client Wemos in connecting to the AP. It has saved my old WiFi credentials and will not reload the new credentials. Is there some way in the Arduino IDE sketch to clear WiFi credentials from the ESP's memory? I've seen posts online that you can use the ESPTool but it would be nice to keep it in the Arduino IDE.