The module I used was the ESP8266 LOLIN v3 which on the Arduino IDE board seems to be the "NodeMCU 1.0 (ESP-12E Module)"
It's main problem is the number of GPIO pins you can use, or not use
. Things like GPIO0 is used to boot into flash mode means I was down to 7 useable pins - just enough to get the charlieplexing to work. I have since managed to use the GPIO0 pin to show either a red led ( WAP mode ) or green led ( wifi connected ) without preventing the switch to flash mode.
Of course during the time when I was thinking and developing this, bought the ESP modules in Jul, Espressif Systems have come out with the ESP32
- which is faster, has more pins and I think can handle HTTPS - something the ESP8266 would struggle to do - and they have updated the Arduino IDE to handle them.
I was thinking about version 2 of the board to fix a couple of issue, but I think version 2, if produced, would use the ESP32 - charlieplexing would be the same just the pinout of the module.
I like the idea of a internet connected MK14 with a camera but I think HTTPS would be a good idea, and the ESP32 does seem to support a camera option
