ESP8266 Community Forum

I am very new to the ESP8266 ESP-01 which is the same as saying I am very confused about firmware and firmware updates. I wired up an ESP8266 with no issues and ran the AT commands in the serial monitor both in the Arduino and Visual Studio IDEs with everything working just fine. I got back the expected results for AT and AT+GMR commands for example. When I updated the firmware, nodemcu-flasher’s default update is a Luna based firmware that I don’t want at this time. I would like to start learning about the ESP8266 using AT commands but can't seem to figure out how to get back to any updated AT firmware.
My problems start with finding any AT firmware upgrade for the module. Researching this issue, I learned that there are a wide variety of firmware options from different developers that range from using AT commands to Luna scripting and they all seem to have links to GitHub sites where their latest firmware is found. However, these sites appears very different from the ones in any of videos I have seen covering updating and the GitHub sites don’t seem to have any instructions on how to use the code found there. Apparently there is a bit more to all this firmware updating cha-cha than just downloading a .bin file and pointing to it in the config tab of nodemcu-flasher and hitting the Flash button.
I am sure downloading the latest firmware from a GitHub site and flashing the firmware is all very basic stuff, but I am, as I mentioned earlier, new and totally lost in the “evolving open source” thickets where documentation doesn’t always keep up with all the improvements in the software. Are there any up to date tutorials, videos, or websites that I can go to that will help me better understand how to select, find, download, and flash firmware into the ESP8266 – especially from the code found on various GitHub sites? I am looking for some very basic “hello world” level learning opportunities that will help me better understand how absolutely little I know about the ESP8266, firmware, and software in general but can still get something up and running.

Hi

Have a look at this http://www.instructables.com/id/Intro-Esp-8266-firmware-update/?ALLSTEPS

This is one of the sources that got me started with the ESP8266-01 (many moons ago).

I think that the latest AT bin firmware is V0.20. If I am wrong others will be quick to post

Thanks AcmeUK,

That is exactly what I was looking for. All the software worked as shown in the tutorials and none of the links were broken. The flash update ran with no apparent errors and none listed in the log. After recycling the ESP8266 and opening up a monitor, it started up just like it did before any firmware update and the chip reported ready.

However (and I am sure you already guessed that there was a "however" lurking around here somewhere) when I type AT, or AT+RST, or any AT command for that matter, the module returns a sparse and rather snobbish message - ERROR.

The module its self is an ESP-01, but does the fact that the module is from AI-Think make any difference as to what firmware is used? Did the AT commands change and I missed it in the documentation somehow? Lions, tigers, and bears... oh my!

Depending on your terminal program you may need to type ctrl-m ctrl-j instead of enter (carriage return, line feed).