I'm currently working on a Home Automation project where I have a Raspberry Pi on Windows IoT which communicates with multiple arduinos running on FreeRTOS (I need multi-tasking). At the moment the communication is through the serial port using Xbees, the Pi sends a command, and the arduino send's back a string in JSON format.
For cost optimisation reasons, I want to try to switch the Xbees with ESP8266 modules. Is it possible to get the same kind of serial communication over WIFI?Thanks.
Is it possible to get the same kind of serial communication over WIFI?
Not precisely, no - but TCP sockets are a similar concept.
You would be best programming the ESP8266 directly to implement a simple TCP to UART bridge firmware instead of fighting with the crummy AT firmware that comes with them.
Its possible to do something similar, but you could reduce the cost even more and drop the Arduinos if you can get FreeRTOS to work on ESP-8266.
These links gives you a brief guide to using the ESP8266 shield for serial over WIFI and how to program the ESP8266 directly.
https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/esp8266-wifi-shield-hookup-guide https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-huzzah-esp8266-breakout/using-arduino-ide
Of course you could also look at an ESP32s which is a dual core microprocessor with loads of networking stuff baked into the chip, its about £7/$8 at the moment.
Carlos, have a look at the ESP-Link project that will, I believe, provide the system you require. As said you may be able to drop the Arduino's using ESP12's. You may also like to consider MQTT to communicate from the Pi to the ESP's
