ESP8266 Community Forum

- Tue May 03, 2016 8:36 am #46772 Is it possible to use an ESP as WiFi-shield for an Arduino Uno, and if so, how?

I have seen a library to use an ESP over SoftSerial, and I have been looking a bit into the WriteVoltage example from ThingSpeak, but I guess that example expects you to upload the sketch to the ESP itself and not the Arduino.

Any help, guidance, or minimal working example would be much appreciated to enable ESP as WiFi-shield for an Arduino.

Robot enthusiast | Indie developer | Enjoys life

- Tue May 03, 2016 9:16 am #46775

Is it possible to use an ESP as WiFi-shield for an Arduino Uno, and if so, how?

Yes. The simplest is to communicate with the ESP's firmware which generally means AT commands.
My ESP-01 default baud rate is 115200 which means I am forced to use the hardware serial on my Uno.
SoftSerial doesn't function properly at 115200.

ThingSpeak, but I guess that example expects you to upload the sketch to the ESP itself and not the Arduino.

That sketch overwrites the firmware that came originally on the ESP itself.


Some people eliminate the Arduino and just use the ESP-12. The ESP module has its own microcontroller.

There are alot of choices out there.

- Wed May 04, 2016 7:28 am #46859

Is it possible to use an ESP as WiFi-shield for an Arduino Uno, and if so, how?

Yes. The simplest is to communicate with the ESP's firmware which generally means AT commands.
My ESP-01 default baud rate is 115200 which means I am forced to use the hardware serial on my Uno.
SoftSerial doesn't function properly at 115200.

Do you know if a library exists for Arduino for this? Coming up with something custom for handling AT commands sounds like something that someone may have done before.

ThingSpeak, but I guess that example expects you to upload the sketch to the ESP itself and not the Arduino.

That sketch overwrites the firmware that came originally on the ESP itself.

Some people eliminate the Arduino and just use the ESP-12. The ESP module has its own microcontroller.

There are alot of choices out there.

Yea I have used ESPs several times with NodeMCU firmware, but to be honest, at least for prototyping, I think it is just much easier to hook all my sensors to an Arduino, easier both handling data (A and D) and power supply. You can easily spend a lot of non-productive time on power conversion setup e.g. for sensor I/O and supply if you go for a ESP-only solution.

Using an ESP as a cheap WiFi-shield for an Arduino would be awesome.

Robot enthusiast | Indie developer | Enjoys life

- Wed May 04, 2016 7:44 am #46862 Hi, always worth checking Sparkfun.

https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13287