While building the parts list for the ESP IOT breakout, I came across a seller for NodeMCU boards and I was surprised by their low cost. For about the same price as my proposed IOT system, the NodeMCU has a number of advantages. As a result, I’ve decided to change the direction of my project slightly. The major reason for this is the support and pre-built code for the platform. This will get my project off the ground much faster.

What is NodeMCU?

NodeMCU is an open source project that is built on top of an ESP8266. It runs a firmware with a LUA interpreter and has built-in libraries for GPIO, networking, etc. It is meant to be similar to Arduino programming and looks like it does a pretty good job of abstracting the nitty gritty details of WiFi connections.

Next Steps

I plan on ordering a few boards soon, which will most likely mean I’ll get them in about 6 weeks. After that, I’ll be testing them out. Stay tuned for a sub-project on getting a NodeMCU board integrated with IFTTT.