ESP8266 Community Forum

Is it possible to program the ESP8266 to behave as a WiFi version of a simple Ethernet MAC? In other words, the data it delivers from the WLAN to an external MCU contains all the original headers, i.e. Ethernet*, IP, TCP/UDP, etc and the data from an external MCU that it sends to the WLAN would also contain the headers. The external MCU would be connected to SPI or UART.

*Having access to the Ethernet headers would be preferable although we could probably live without it and let the ESP8266 do its own ARPing.

If this is possible what would be the best way to go about it? The information available on this device is rather daunting but I imagine it would have to involve using the native SDK or perhaps some variant thereof.

Please no "why don't you just do ... instead" type answers. We have valid reasons for needing to do things this way but ironically simpler WiFi modules that do what we need are considerably more expensive.

Something like the ATWILC1000 http://www.microchip.com/wwwproducts/en/ATWILC1000 is what we're after. Does anyone know if the ESP8266 can operate in this role and if so, how?

Really it's just a kind of WiFi to serial bridge that we're after but one that leaves the Ethernet, IP, TCP/UDP headers intact. It is frustrating that something so trivial seems to be so difficult and I surely can't be the first person who has wanted this.

It should have been an optional feature alongside the AT commands. It would have been acceptable if an AT command could have been issued that would have turned that interface off and switch to raw unprocessed network I/O.

Has anyone ever done or seen anything like this or know how it could be done?