Ever since I saw these LED Candles I wanted to pick them up and connect them to a WiFi enabled micro controller to make an IoT LED Candle. Recently while browsing through the local Walmart I noticed one of these with the “Try Me” button. I had no choice but to pick it up and get my IoT itch over with. In the end it was pretty straight forward with the help of the awesome Adafruit IO.
Look for “Additional Board Managers” field and enter <code>http://arduino.esp8266.com/stable/package_esp8266com_index.json</code>
Open Tools>Boards>Board Manager
Choose “esp8266 by Esp8266 Community” and install. Its about 160 MB install.
ESP8266 Arduino Board Manager Install
After Installation these are the boards I could see in Boards menu under ESP8266:
ESP8266 modules in Arduino IDE
You should now be able to connect your NodeMCU to the PC and verify. Be aware of two things:
a) You might have to install the Silicon Labs CP210x Serial Driver if you can not see any COM Port listed on the Ardunio> Tools> Ports menu
b) It might a silly thing. But make sure you use the right USB cable. There are too many USB cables in my toolbox. Once in my ignorance about USB cables I used a power only USB charging cable (one that has only the two wires for power connected and no data wires) and struggled a while on COM port not appearing.
NodeMCU Blink
Once the Port appears in the Arduino IDE menu, choose the right board. In my case its NodeMCU 0.9 board.
Choose File>Examples>ESP8266>Blink sketch. Press Upload. The blue led on the ESP8266 should blink rapidly indicating communication status. Once sketch is successfully uploaded I could see the on board red LED connected to GPIO 16 blink (D0 on the board).. Pin out below.
NodeMCU Pinout
Now that my Arduino IDE is setup to be used for NodeMCU programming, time to explore further.