Configuring ESP8266 Wi-Fi Network Connection Through A Web Page

ESP8266 is one of the popular Wi-Fi chips with microcontroller capability. In this article, we will touch on a couple of items that are possible to do with ESP8266 and finally, we will see how to configure a WI-FI network connection through a web page working on the chip by bringing all those together.

Table of contents:

• Creating A WI-FI Access Point
• Connecting A Wi-Fi Network
• Creating A Web Server
• Storing And Reading Data From The Flash Memory
• Setting Up Wi-Fi Network Through A Web Page on ESP8266

Creating A WI-FI Access Point

ESP8266 can operate in station and access point modes. As we need to access a web page to be running on ESP8266, we will see how to run the chip in access point mode first.

In order to configure the WI-FI, we import the ESP8266WiFi library.

#include <ESP8266WiFi.h>

Next, we define an SSID and a password for the Wi-Fi network we’re going to create.

const char *AP_SSID="MyDevice";
const char *AP_PASSWORD="123456789";

And finally, it’s time to start our mini access point.

void setup() {
  WiFi.mode(WIFI_AP);
  WiFi.softAP(AP_SSID, AP_PASSWORD);
}

Let’s compile the code below and upload it to the development board (In my case, I used a NodeMCU board with an EP8266 chip)

#include <ESP8266WiFi.h>

const char *AP_SSID="MyDevice";
const char *AP_PASSWORD="123456789";

void setup() {
  WiFi.mode(WIFI_AP);
  WiFi.softAP(AP_SSID, AP_PASSWORD);
}

void loop() {}

As you can see from the following picture, the access point name appears on the list.

Enter the password that we defined in the code to authenticate the network.