How to connect to an ESP32 development board via Bluetooth on your Mac

When you are trying to build a ESP32 project that uses Bluetooth to receive from or send data to another device on Mac, you may want to use your Mac to connect to your ESP32 board to test Bluetooth connectivity.

In this case, you will need to first connect your Mac with the ESP32 development board via Bluetooth.

So how can you do that?

In case you need it, this is how to connect to an ESP32 development board via Bluetooth on your Mac.

How to get your ESP32 development board to communicate with another device over Bluetooth Serial

Since a ESP32 development board comes with Bluetooth, we can get it to communicate with another device over Bluetooth Serial.

With this in mind, let’s look at how we can get your ESP32 development board to communicate with another device over Bluetooth Serial.

How to use a ESP32 development board to read temperature and humidity from a DH11 sensor

When you have a DHT11 sensor, you will be able to get the temperature and humidity of your environment.

Given that, this post shows how to use ESP32 development board to read temperature and humidity from a DHT11 sensor.

How to use C# to read sensor data from Arduino or ESPx via serial connection

When you have an old Windows machine, you can convert it into an IOT gateway.

So how can we read sensor data with our windows machine? Since our windows machine probably do not have GPIO pins, we can read sensor data via an intermediary device.

For example, we can first attach an Arduino Uno or ESP32 development board as the intermediary device to our windows machine via USB. Given that connection, the intermediary device will read the sensor data and send those values via serial. On our Windows machine, we can then run a program to read those values from serial.

So how can we read sensor data from Arduino or ESPx via serial connection on our Windows machine? Since C# is a programming language for creating windows application, we can use C# to read those data from serial.

How to create an API endpoint that generates a QR Code image, with Python 3 Flask-RESTPlus and python-qrcode

When you have an API endpoint that generates a QR Code image, another device with a QR Code scanner will be able to get the encoded value to perform some action. For example, WhatsApp web generates a QR Code image that encodes a code for WhatsApp app to sign in the user.

So how can you create an API endpoint that generates a QR Code image? With this in mind, let’s look at how we can do so with Python 3 Flask-RESTPlus and python-qrcode.

How to prepare a virtual environment to run a gpiozero based project on Raspbian Stretch

When you use a virtual environment to run your application, you isolate the dependencies in its own container.

In such a situation, you can ensure that your application can run alongside other applications with incompatible dependencies.

Therefore, I always favour the use of virtual environment for running my Python applications.

With this in mind, this is a story about preparing a virtual environment to run a gpiozero based project on Raspbian Stretch.

How to use a ESP32 development board to read from an ADXL345 accelerometer

When you want to detect movement of your IOT project, you can use an ADXL345 accelerometer. With this in mind, let’s look at how we can use a ESP32 development board to read from an ADXL345 accelerometer.

How to use a ESP32 development board to read temperature and humidity from a DHT22 sensor

When you have a DHT22 / AM2302 sensor, you will be able to get the temperature and humidity of your environment.

Given that, this post shows how to use ESP32 development board to read temperature and humidity from a DHT22 sensor.

Enabling ESP32 Development on Arduino IDE

When you want to implement a low cost IOT solution with bluetooth interface, you can consider using a ESP32 development board. In addition to the bluetooth interface, the ESP32 development board also includes a WiFi interface.

In order to run a program on the ESP32 Development Board, we will need to write our program into the flash memory of the development board. Since it is easy to write code and flash programs with Arduino IDE, it is a good tool to use with the ESP32 Development Board.

In case you need it, this post shows how to enable ESP32 development on Arduino IDE.