You’ve written that as though you think that both steps are necessary to get Edgent to work.
Using Blynk.Air is totally optional, but as with any OTA system you need to prepare your device to listen for OTA updates by first of all uploading the sketch via USB cable.
Yes. That code is what makes all of the Edgent functionality - including OTA and dynamic provisioning - work. If you try to remove it then the code probably won’t compile, and even if it does it won’t function correctly when uploaded either via USB or OTA.
Personally, I’m not a great fan of Edgent. It has some great functionality, but it’s too complex for most people (including myself) to fully understand. It also takes-up two additional GPIO pins, and if youre using a ESP8266 based board then you may not have useable pins available.
99% of projects that most people create don’t need dynamic provisioning or OTA that works outside of the home network. Even if they do want OTA from anywhere in the world then it’s a simple task to just add that into your sketch like this…
This guide was just written because I was tired of keep explaining the same things about board types and Settings.h and its simper to write it once then link people to it when they have an issue.
Pete.