Developing an IoT based project is hard enough without having to also think about designing a PCB to fit your needs. This tiny ESP8285 IoT development board made by PeskyProducts aims to help you get your idea up and running with the minimum fuss possible.
This board has a lot of features that will appeal to someone who just wants to plug it in and get going with their project. First, it uses the ESP8285 which is just the ESP8266 with an added megabyte of embedded SPI flash memory. This is nice for a couple of reasons; the internal program memory means you don’t need to design for two discrete chips if you end up spinning your own board, and it doubles the space available with all of the most common ESP modules.
The MAX1555 LiPo charger chip included allows you to charge a LiPo battery via the USB Micro-B connector.
Programming the board is as easy as plugging in the USB cable and opening up the Arduino IDE, with serial output to the Arduino serial monitor possible thanks to the on-board FTDI chip.
It can be plugged straight into a breadboard which will be very handy for quick prototyping of projects. As if it isn’t feature packed enough, PeskyProducts has included the footprint for a Bosch BME280 pressure, temperature and humidity sensor as well as Vishay’s VEML6040 RGBW ambient light sensor. This means you can easily turn this board into an environment / weather monitor or make your wearables react to the color of light at the club.
