An ESP8266 project that uses UDP to send messages to a server.
- Overview
- History
- Running the Application
- Design Details
- Code Details
- Future Modifications
- Links and References
This project demonstrates the use of UDP on an ESP8266 (NodeMCU v1.0). It acts as a client and connects with a server. Software components included here come from some of my previous work, such as ESP8266-config-data-V2.
I wanted to test the UDP capabilities of the ESP8266 platform before I implemented code in a project. This application and its accompanying Node.js applications will do just that. The areas I was intereseted in were -
- UDP one & two way communication between a device and a server.
- UDP multi-cast communication from devices to one or more servers, including replies from servers.
Please read through this section and the files it links to at least once before proceeding. There are configuration changes you will need to make before running the applications.
You will need a server capable of responding to the UDP packets sent from the sketch. A second ESP8266 could be set up as a server by using one of the many UDP examples found online. A good one is Arduino/doc/esp8266wifi/udp-examples on Github. Please note that a Packet Sender example specific to this project will be provide later.
My preferred test server is NodeJS running a simple script. That's because I'm also developing a server to handle incoming data from sensors that will be on my network. And I've got experience writing Node.js applications.
In my current development set up I use Visual Studio Code to run and debug the UDP server code. However the examples found in the nodejs folder in this repository can be run from the command line -
server-udp.js- A simple server that listens for UDP packets containing text. After a packet is recevied it replies to the sender.client-udp.js- A simple UDP client that sends packets containing text.
multi-udp.js- A multi-cast UDP server that listens for messages on224.0.0.1and then replies to the sender via their IP address.
To see information and an example on using the scripts with this sketch right-click here and open in a new tab or window.
In order for the sketch to run on your network and use your UDP server some minor modifications must be made. To see some instructions on modifying it right-click here and open in a new tab or window.
This sketch behaves as a client and not as a server as shown in most ESP8266 UDP examples. In those examples the ESP8266 responds to a UDP packet with a reply. In this sketch it behaves as a client and sends a packet to a server and then it expects a reply from the server.
The sketch continuously alternates between sending a UDP packet and waiting for a reply. After a packet is sent a delay of 1 second occurs before it attempts to receive a reply.
The main sketch file - ESP9266-udp.ino, intentionally does not have a lot of code in it. Instead the code you would normally see is grouped into two types -
esp8266-udp Functions : UDP initialization, send, and receive. To view function descriptions please right-click here and open in a new tab or window.
esp8266-ino Functions : Miscellaneous and reusable functions. To view function descriptions please right-click here and open in a new tab or window.
Just some things I may experiment with. This section will get updated as I work on them.
Create functions that can take an object and render them as JSON strings. Then send the JSON data to the server and expect a JSON response. The response will then be parsed into an object for use in the application. Possible uses are -
- Obtaining configuration data.
- Registering a device with a server.
- Sending device/sensor data to a server.
- Arduino/doc/esp8266wifi/udp-class.rst on Github
- Arduino/doc/esp8266wifi/udp-examples.rst on Github
To fully understand ArduinoJson and how to properly determine the appropriate size of the buffer needed for your JSON data I recommend that you read the following -
- ESP8266 SPIFFS - Flash File System documentation, read this first - http://esp8266.github.io/Arduino/versions/2.3.0/doc/filesystem.html
- ArduinoJson documentation, start here - https://bblanchon.github.io/ArduinoJson/
- ArduinoJson Avoiding Pitfalls, this provides a very good explanation of common pitfalls as related to the ArduinoJson memory model - https://bblanchon.github.io/ArduinoJson/doc/pitfalls/
- ArduinoJson Memory Model, this explains how the memory model is allocated and information regarding buffer sizes and methods of allocation - https://bblanchon.github.io/ArduinoJson/doc/memory/
- ArduinoJson Assistant is a tool to aid in determining the correct buffer size based on a sample of the JSON you are working with - https://bblanchon.github.io/ArduinoJson/assistant/
© 2017 James Motyl