The LoLin V3 NodeMcu Lua WIFI Development Board offers a complete and self-contained Wi-Fi networking solution, allowing it to either host the application or to offload all Wi-Fi networking functions from another application processor. It has powerful on-board processing and storage capabilities that allow it to be integrated with the sensors and other application specific devices through its GPIOs with minimal development up-front and minimal loading during run time. Its high degree of on-chip integration allows for minimal external circuitry, and the entire solution, including front-end module, is designed to occupy minimal PCB area. In has onboard ESP8266 12E module for Wifi connectivity.

The LoLin V3 NodeMcu Lua WIFI Development Board combines an 80Mhz 32 bit processor with 802.11 a, b, g and n support in both station and router modes at a fantastic price point, enabling a pervasive, low-cost Internet of Things. It comes in various different flavors. The primary difference between the V2 and the V3 is the use of the ESP-12E module, which exposes GPIO 9 and 10 – another two GPIO pins come in very handy.

ESP8266 is much easier to use than programming with other IDEs, although if you wish you can use the LUA scripting language. Pretty much all of the base Arduino functions are complete usable including, Wi-Fi, webserver, the GPIO pins, interrupts, EEPROM, Wire library (I2C), SPI, timers using Ticker, Servo, DS1820 temperature sensors, DHT11 sensors, MQTT, real-time clocks and others.

ESP8266 modules can be tricky to flash, but it’s a pretty seamless process using the Arduino IDE as, most of the time, the boards need no intervention to upload your sketch. Occasionally you have to hit flash/reset to upload.