The ESP8266 Arduino package provides a great and familiar to use ecosystem for developing code on the chip. However, most examples for WiFi network connection and management involve building and uploading new code every time you want to change the network settings. That's just more than should be required if you want to simply connect an existing and complete project to a new network. There are some examples of ESP8266 WiFi managers already but all seem to go with the more complicated process of entering AP mode, connecting to the ESP8266 with another computer, loading a webpage and configuring via that page. This library, however, seeks to simplify that with providing an easy to use interactive serial console for all your WiFi network management needs. It supports open, WEP, WPA, and even WPS connections as well as can commit the configuration to EEPROM to be automatically connected on reboot.

ESP Serial WiFi Manager
=======================

================
MAIN MENU
================
1: Scan
2: Enter SSID
3: WPS Connect
4: Disconnect
5: Commit Config
6: Display Network Details
7: Quit

Timeout in 10s...
> 1

Starting network scan...

3 networks found:
==================
1: NSA_VAN_7 (-86)*
2: FREE_WIFI (-77)*
3: Linksys8021 (-80)*
==================

s: Scan Again
q: Quit Network Scan
> 3

Connect to Linksys8021:
Password> **********

Advanced Config? y/n> n

Connecting to Linksys8021
...........
Connection Sucessful
Choose Commit Config for changes to persist reboot.

=============================
Current Network Details:
=============================
SSID: Linksys8021
IP Address: 10.0.1.111
MAC address: 72:73:0:7F:CF:5C
Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
Gateway: 10.0.1.1
DNS 1: 10.0.1.1
DNS 2: 0.0.0.0
=============================

Go to the Release page and download the latest release source zip. Once downloaded, follow the Arduino library Zip installation guide

ESPSerialWiFiManager is designed to be as unobtrusive to your existing code as possible. It's up to you when the manager menu is presented and it can be displayed anywhere by simply calling the run_menu() function. Below is the absolute simplest way to initialize and show the manager menu:

//First, include the 2 required headers
#include <ESP8266WiFi.h>
#include <ESPSerialWiFiManager.h>

//Create the manager object
ESPSerialWiFiManager esp = ESPSerialWiFiManager();

void setup(){
    //Initialize the serial connection. This is required.
    Serial.begin(115200);
    //Complete manager init (this will init WiFi and EEPROM)
    esp.begin();
    //If desired at beginnging, show manager menu
    //This will timeout after 10 seconds
    esp.run_menu(10);
}

Note that if your code uses EEPROM in any way you must use the optional eeprom_size and eeprom_offset parameters of the ESPSerialWiFiManger constructor otherwise there will be conflicting EEPROM data.

You can connect to the interactive management console on the ESP8266 via a serial connection, either using an FTDI adapter or any on board serial to USB connection. On all platforms, using the Arduino Serial Monitor is always on option. Just open the monitor, set the baud rate to the rate you set in Serial.begin(). Note that entering options into the management console requires sending the return key which in the Arduino Serial Monitor requires setting line ending option in the bottom right of the monitor window. Any option other than "No line ending" will work.

On Windows, putty is a good option and you can connect to the serial port via:

putty -serial <COM_PORT> -sercfg 115200

On Linux and Mac, the best option we've found is to use the screen command which if not already available can be installed via your native package manager. It is almost always:

sudo <apt-get|yum|dnf|etc> install screen

Once you have screen, connect to the serial port via:

screen /dev/tty<device> 115200

To find, the actual device path, the easiest way is generally to connect the ESP8266 device and then run:

dmesg | grep /dev/tty*

Then look for a line detailing the connection of a new USB Serial device which will list the full device path.

Once connected the board will not automatically reset like when using the Arduino Serial Monitor so you will either have to manually reset the board or enter whatever command you have set in your code to launch the manager menu.

The constructor can typically be called with no parameters but because EEPROM works a little differently on the ESP8266, two optional parameters are provided.

• eeprom_size: (optional) Size in bytes of the desired EEPROM. Typically between 512 and 4096. The ESP8266 does not actually have an EEPROM and instead it's faked by writing to flash. Only use this if you are already using EEPROM in your code and need to specify something other than the default 512 bytes.
• eeprom_offset: (optional) Offset in bytes at which the ESPSerialWiFiManager config should be stored. If, for example, your code uses 100 bytes of EEPROM, starting at byte index 0, set this offset to something greater than 100 so that ESPSerialWiFiManager does not overwrite your code's EEPROM data.

If you are using EEPROM in your code, you must remove the call to EEPROM.begin() and instead let ESPSerialWiFiManager handle it for you!

This must be called before run_menu() and will configure the EEPROM then connect to any stored WiFi network automatically, if previously saved.

• ssid: (optional) If provided ESPSerialWiFiManager will attempt to connect to this SSID instead of anything stored in EEPROM.
• pass: (optional) If provided ESPSerialWiFiManager will attempt to connect to the above SSID using this password. If not provided, it is assumed that the network is unsecured.

The optional parameters are useful for providing a default that can then be changed on the fly via the serial menu. If this connection fails, it will attempt a connection from details stored in EEPROM, if available. But this will always be tried first so it is best when used only if the interactive config is to be used temporarily.

Launches the interactive serial console. This can be called anywhere in the code. For example, call at the end of setup() with a timeout to provide a one-time option to configure the WiFi on boot. Or call it inside loop() when a button is pressed. See the examples for more.

• timeout: (optional) If provided, the interactive console will timeout after this many seconds and return control to the main program.

Simply a wrapper around WiFi.status() for convenience.