In this tutorial you create a Thinger.io account, connect an ESP32 board and read a value from it in the console. It takes about 15 minutes.

What you need

• An ESP32 development board and a USB data cable.
• A 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi network with Internet access.
• The Arduino IDE installed on your computer.

This tutorial uses the free Cloud account, so your server is iot.thinger.io. On a private instance, use your own domain wherever this page says YOUR_SERVER, and open your own console instead of console.thinger.io.

Create your account

1. Sign up

   Open console.thinger.io/signup, fill in Username, Email and Password, accept the terms and click Sign Up. Your username is YOUR_USER in the rest of this tutorial.

2. Sign in to the console

   Confirm your email if the console asks you to, and sign in. The console opens on Statistics.

Create the device

1. Open the Add Device form

   In the main menu, go to Devices and click Create a Device.

2. Fill in the form

   • Device Type: IOTMP Device (Thinger.io protocol).
   • Device Id: a name for your board, such as esp32_test. This is YOUR_DEVICE.
   • Device Credentials: click Random.

   Copy the device credentials before you continue: this is YOUR_TOKEN in the sketch. Click Add Device.

   

   Add an IOTMP device

Program the board

1. Install the ESP32 package

   In the Arduino IDE, open Tools > Board > Boards Manager, search for esp32 and install esp32 by Espressif Systems.

2. Install the Thinger.io library

   Open Sketch > Include Library > Manage Libraries, search for thinger.io and click Install.

3. Paste the sketch

   Create a new sketch and paste this code. Replace YOUR_USER, YOUR_DEVICE and YOUR_TOKEN with your username, the device ID and the device credentials, and set your Wi-Fi network name and password.

   #define THINGER_SERIAL_DEBUG
   
   #include <ThingerESP32.h>
   
   #define USERNAME "YOUR_USER"
   #define DEVICE_ID "YOUR_DEVICE"
   #define DEVICE_CREDENTIAL "YOUR_TOKEN"
   
   #define WIFI_SSID "wifi-network"
   #define WIFI_PASSWORD "wifi-password"
   
   #define LED_PIN 2  // change it to the LED pin of your board
   
   ThingerESP32 thing(USERNAME, DEVICE_ID, DEVICE_CREDENTIAL);
   
   void setup() {
     Serial.begin(115200);
     pinMode(LED_PIN, OUTPUT);
   
     thing.add_wifi(WIFI_SSID, WIFI_PASSWORD);
   
     // input resource: turn the LED on and off
     thing["led"] << digitalPin(LED_PIN);
   
     // output resource: milliseconds since the board started
     thing["millis"] >> outputValue(millis());
   }
   
   void loop() {
     thing.handle();
   }

4. Upload it

   Connect the board, choose it in Tools > Board (for most boards, ESP32 Dev Module) and its port in Tools > Port, and click Upload. Then open Tools > Serial Monitor at 115200 baud. After a few seconds, it shows [THINGER] Authenticated.

See your device in the console

1. Check the connection

   Go to Devices. Your device has a green status dot. Click it to open its Status page: Device State shows Online.

   

   Device State Online

2. Read a value

   On the device page, go to API. Expand millis and click Run: the output shows the milliseconds since the board started. Expand led, switch it on and click Run: the LED of the board turns on.

   

   The led and millis resources after Run

Result

Your ESP32 is online in Devices, and you can read its millis device resource and control its LED from the console.

If the serial monitor does not show Authenticated, check the Wi-Fi network and the three credentials, and see Troubleshooting.

Next steps

Coding guideWrite Arduino firmware for Thinger.io - device resources, pins, Data Buckets, properties, endpoints and connection handling.Core conceptsHow devices, device resources, properties, Data Buckets, dashboards, endpoints, products, projects and access tokens fit together in Thinger.io.Console tourFind your way around the Thinger.io console - the main menu, the Statistics page and where each feature lives.

Then store the readings of your device in a Data Bucket and show them on a dashboard.