Wireless from blynk to arduino mega?

1

Hey fellow blynkers,

I need a way to communicate completely wirelessly (no ethernet or usb cables) from the arduino mega to a blynk enabled phone. How can I, or will I (after release of BLE support) soon be able to do this and what is the most cost effective way?

is it possible to use an esp2866 to create a network for the arduino mega, then connect to that network with your blynk enabled phone and controll the arduino?

I hear bluetooth is coming soon but iphone does not support cheap units like the hc-05 i’v been told. What about the HM-10 BLE module, would this be a good pick?

Any advice would be welcome!

2

Do you mean, direct wifi connection to the Mega (without servers)?

3

Is that (or will that in the near future) be possible?

I need a way to connect my mega to my smartphone, and use blynk to control the mega.
My mega can not be connected to a cable because I’m using it as a detonator for a fireworks firing system. Any cables would get destroyed. The mega can also not be connected to internet because in most “safe” firing places (think islands, rafts, hills, beaches, open fields) wireless internet will not be available.

So yes, the only options i see is “direct wifi” or BLE. How would I best go about this?

4

Another solution I can think of is using an esp2886 as a wifi shield for the mega and then tethering my phone’s 4g.That way the mega can connect to the blynk server and a direct connection is possible. This is not a very consumerfriendly solution but inexpensive. Would that be doable, would the mega connect automatically if I suddenly tethered my phone out in the middle of nowhere (assuming that it has the password and identification of my phone’s hotspot?

5

Hi,
I use an Adafruit CC3000 Wi-Fi Shield with my Arduino Mega and it works just fine. I use an Android tablet and Blynk to remote control a Rover Robot wirelessly to a mission starting point, then to switch it in and out of Autonomous Roving Mode.
Ron in Montreal

6

I use an ESP8266 to do this. They cost about $8

7

Thx for your reply Ron, but i hear from many people here the cc3000 is prone to disconnect? Also is there a cheap version available somewhere?

8

Did you connect ur esp8266 to an arduino Mega? And that worked? Can you point me to a good tutorial that works for the mega? I have an esp8266 but I cant for the love of god get it to be friends with the mega. Ethernet shield works fine, connecting esp works to (i think) but nothing comes out :s

9

Well, I connected it to an Uno but I’ve heard that this tutorial:

Worked for a Mega as well

1 Like
10

Thanks buddy, looking into it right now :). Fingers crossed!

11

Unfortunately this is a guide for mac and I m a clueless win fanboy. You think it will work on win?

12

this is the part im stuck:

"Step 2: Open your Mac Terminal (you can find Terminal in a spotlight search), then type “cd”. Next, drag the “esptool-master” folder into the terminal window and hit enter. The window should look something like:

~ Home$ cd /Users/Home/Desktop/esptool-master

:esptool-master Home$

Step 2: Copy this text, “sudo ./esptool.py --port /dev/tty.??? write_flash 0x00000 AT22SDK10020150320boot12.bin” into Terminal. Replace the ??? with your device address you found in the previous step. You only replace the ??? with the characters after “cu.” and before (Arduino Uno). For example, mine is /dev/cu.usbmodemfd121 (Arduino Uno), so I replaced the ??? with “usbmodemfd121”. Make sure the device address is copied exactly. When I first did this, I was off by one letter and it took me a while to figure it out. Now, hit enter. It will ask you for your password. The window should now look something like:

~ Home$ cd /Users/Home/Desktop/esptool-master

:esptool-master Home$ sudo ./esptool.py --port /dev/tty.usbmodemfd121 write_flash 0x00000
AT22SDK10020150320boot12.bin
Password:
Connecting…
Erasing flash…
Wrote 520192 bytes at 0x00000000 in
49.8 seconds (83.5 kbit/s)…
Leaving…
:esptool-master Home$"

13

So the only part of this that isn’t the same for Windows is the flashing of the esp8266 (which is the step you’re on now). The firmware is the same but it’s a different process. There are loads of tutorials online for flashing an esp8266 using Windows though