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The purpose of this wiki is to help anyone interested in using and/or collaborating to this project.
Let's first look at how it's working right now, from a user perspective.
To have something usefull, you will need to have at least two esp8266 based boards. I obviously haven't tested all available esp8266 boards, but a few should be compatible, and I'll list the one I've actually successfully used.
On one, you will flash the code from the iotinator directory, and it will be the "master".
On the other one you will flash one of the available modules: iotSwitch, iotXenia, iotLeak...
For now (2018/05/25) only iotSwitch can actually be useful, the others are work in progress and "forget me not" landmarks.
So let's say you flashed iotSwitch.
Here is an illustrated chronology:
| iotinator action/screen | Module action/screen |
|---|---|
Power iotinator up, first time after flashing the software.
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| The screen is showing the module's name "iotinator", then a steady "outbound" wifi icon, then the default ssid "iotinator" opened by the module as an Access Point, its ip on the network, and the "Please initialize" message. | |
"Please initialize" means you need to initialize the master module, and to do that just connect your mobile phone to the "iotinator" wifi network, with password "iotinator", and put the displayed ip in your browser's url bar Fill in the fields, hit the submit button, your settings will be saved in the EEPROM. |
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| Once initialized, the module will alternatively display the new ssid (I chose to call it "XiotWifi" here) and its ip on it, as well as your home wifi ssid and it# s ip on it. After a few seconds, it also should display the current date and time. Yes, it is connected to your home wifi AND exposes its own ssid! 
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Power the switch module up, first time after flashing the software.
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| The screen will show the module's title, "Switch", a blinking "inbound" wifi icon and a message saying it's trying to connect to the "iotinator" ssid. But the master no longer exposes the "iotinator" ssid ! | |
| Press the reset button on iotinator. It will then reopen the default "iotinator" ssid for 30 seconds and display a second counter in the bottom right corner | |
The Switch module was just waiting for a "iotinator" wifi network! It will then connect to it!
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The master module got the Switch module registration request, and sends back the ssid to chose to use: "XiotWifi"
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The Switch module got the configuration when registering, and now switches to the new ssid "XiotWifi", and can display the time it got from iotinator We can see the name of the module was modified. How come!? It's just that I have another Switch module which connected first. So iotinator will rename the second one to the first name available. |
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| Once the 30 seconds are over, iotinator reopens the ssid you chose, and all modules connect using this ssid. |
Now, the configuration is persisted in EEPROM, so when you turn the modules off then on, they will automatically reconnect to the ssid you chose, but iotinator will first expose the default ssid for 30 seconds, in case new modules need to connect.
When you want to connect a brand new module, just press reset on iotinator, and that's it!
Now, with your phone connected to your home ssid (or even to the ssid you set up in iotinator), you can open your browser on the IP address displayed (the one according to the ssid you connected to), and it will display the webapp:
We can see that there are actually two "Switch" modules connected, as I mentioned earlier.
The UI for the Switch module allows you to turn the feature on or off. Here I turned if "on", which is shown on the screen. For the demonstration it turns a led on, but it will actually drive a relay to switch a lamp, or heater, or whatever.
We have seen that once the iotinator master module has been configured using the default "iotinator" ssid it opens a wifi network you chose, protected by a password you chose.
We have seen that any new Xiot module is then able to join by just resetting the master.
We have seen that such registered modules then show up on the web app that can display their states and offer controls to change their states.
If you just want to use modules, you get cheap stuff to make your home smarter, monitor and control stuff from wherever in the world when traveling around, using one single web application (and, later, SMS too). Of course the choice is limited for now, but some are in the works, and hopefully more people will contribute ;)
If you want to design a monitoring and/or control module, you get an easy to use framework that allows you to design a tailored-to-your-needs module with fancy Oled screen and wifi connection in literally just a few lines of code.
The code for the Switch module is here: https://github.com/reivaxy/iotSwitch
The code for its UI is here: https://github.com/reivaxy/iotinator/tree/master/webSite/app/switchUIClass (It should probably also be in the iotSwitch repo, and may move there at some point, but for now it's much easier to leave it here).
And you can see by yourself there is not much of it !