ESP32 IoT: Wi-Fi, sensors and cloud apps

About this path

The ESP32 is a small board with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth built in, which makes it the easiest way into the Internet of Things. This path takes you from setting it up in the Arduino IDE to complete smart devices you control from your phone, anywhere in the world.

In the first part you build your first connected projects. You read temperature and humidity with the DHT11, switch a relay from your phone over Wi-Fi, detect motion with a PIR sensor, read a joystick, measure temperature with the TMP36, steer a servo from a web page, drive a DC motor fan from your phone, send motion alerts with ntfy, log temperature to Google Sheets, build a cloud dashboard with Adafruit IO, wake up with a sunrise lamp, count down the days to a big event, log RFID check-ins, show the weather forecast on an LCD and play songs on a Wi-Fi music box.

In the second part you add the 45-in-1 Sensor Kit, and the ESP32 serves live web pages you open on any phone on the same Wi-Fi. You build touch sensors, a sound level meter, a water level monitor, a knock logger, a spirit level, a web thermometer, a colour picker, a plant sensor, a rain alarm, an MQTT phone dashboard, a Telegram bot, a Wi-Fi doorbell, a classroom noise logger, a TV remote, an SD card climate logger, a daylight tracker, a desk seismograph, a do-not-disturb sign, a bike speedometer, a friendship lamp and a dice you shake.

In the third part you use Blynk, a free app and cloud service, to control your projects from anywhere: a climate station, a plant monitor with phone alerts, an RGB light, a motion alarm, a smart switch with a timer, a thermostat fan, a pet feeder, a flame alarm, an RFID door, a water tank monitor, window blinds, a mailbox alert, a focus timer, a washing-machine alert, a parking sensor, a room monitor, a fridge door alarm, a desk buddy and a people counter. You learn virtual pins, timers instead of delay(), push notifications and automatic modes.

In the fourth part you use Arduino Cloud, Arduino's own IoT platform: a live climate dashboard, a colour lamp with a colour wheel, a door alert, a smart plant monitor, a window that opens itself when it gets warm, two boxes in different places that ring each other, and finally a whole model smart home on one dashboard.

You need the EEMENTOR IoT ESP32 Starter Kit, the 45-in-1 Sensor Kit from the second part, and free Blynk and Arduino Cloud accounts. When you finish, continue with the ESP32 capstone projects.