Whats the latest with ESP8266 + Teensy 3.2?

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Hi Folks,
Been spending sometime time (i.e too much) thinking, coding and reading up on the best way to get my teensy connected to my phone wirelessly.

I was wondering what is the board's collective experience with the ESP8266, often thought of as one of the better chips to bring in WIFI connectivity to the teensy.

From what I've learned this is likely a loaded question. Because the ESP8266 is
- Arduino compatible
- Has a number of different firmwares one can flash
- Can be used standalone
- Or with a teensy as co-processor.
- Has various hardware form factors with different pins (ESP-01, ESP-05, ESP-12E, ESP-12F, ESP32, ESP1337, ESP0xCAFEBABE, ESP0xDEADBEAF etc :confused:)
- Has a very interesting wiring and boot up process to get started with the platform itself

I have yet to stumble on a guide that comprehensively discusses these different hardware configurations (I saw a post on the different hardware form factors last year), the best supporting library to use (I've played with a number of github projects some to more success than others) and just exactly what to use for the various use cases out there.

Even after spending this much time on the teensy and documenting things as I go along, I'm left wondering of the following:
0. Is the ESP8266 still considered a good option for wifi connectivity
1. Is there any kind of best practice document on wiring up the teensy 3.2 to esp8266. I.e sometimes I saw on this board that serial1 is the preferred interface to hook up to the teensy (I'm using serial2, and using serial1 to debug my incarnation of the library)
3. Is there an async library to use ESP8266 'vanilla' (i.e using espressif's firmware with it's AT command set)
4. Does a firmware exist such that the ESP8266 can handle all wifi + static html content (it this amazingly large flash memory that I'd like to work with) while still offloading certain, say, HTTP queries to the teensy
5. Has anyone, recently, able to replicate dougboy's 4608000 baud rate with the esp8266? (I can't get past 115200 on serial2 just yet (results in 10KB/S transfer rates)) See Teensy-3-0-UART-datarate
6. Whats the last word on needing CTS/RTS?
7. Will the teensy4 have wifi built-in so I don't have to worry about all this as i'm going to bed at night :D


I guess I'd like to get this kind of integration out of the dark a bit and possible build in some really nice wifi support :)
 
I use the ESP8266 extensively on major projects for industrial-type process control where internet connection is required. Two large projects both use a ESP8266 as central controller for over a year now without one single reboot, reset or lost internet connections.
Maybe I miss something but I do not understand the fuss about the Teensy: the ESP8266 has -in my maybe prejudiced opinion- all the features at least of a Teensy, plus internet connectivity.
I developped my own ESP8266 production PCB, it includes a auto-reset programming feature (I use DTR to automatically set the chip in program mode, no need to fuss with handling wires to get the chip in program mode) and although 8 I/O pins seems very limited, to me it is more than enough to handle even large process control projects.
 
Hallo RoboRepublic I'm using ESP8266 with a Teensy 3.2 . The only problem I found is a good API to manage it so I wrote down some code using AT commands. In my case I use the 'standard wiring scheme i.e. Serial1->ESP8266' but based on my usage any wiring should fit. You found a library to use ESP8266 trough Teensy without using AT commands? In my opinion the solution in itself is pretty good and as good performance and stability but I have to admit that my application is not very demanding.
 
brice3010 one of the negative point of ESP8266 standalone is the single UART port (at least the board I'm using) in my case I need three UARTs and Teensy is among the few Arduino boards (of my small knowledge) that handles more than 2 UARTs.
 
I do not even use or need onboard UART, I program directly with TX/RX from any FTDI, CP210x etc UART module. Onboard UART is expensive, takes space on the PCB and is not needed once you are past prototyping.

TX/RX can be used to interface with any radiomodule, with any Atmega chip, etc..

I developed my own ESP8266 board with all I/O interfacing available, and with a full auto-reset feature pre-empting the need for any UART.
 
After prototype stage almost everyone goes for very specific and optimized solutions, general purposes hardware like Teensy or anyother NON chip solution aren't made for this.
But if you have to connect with 2 (or more) different devices only using UARTs and you want to arrange a low cost/low time solution the only way is to find something like Teensy and pair it
with a ESPx like module to provide WiFi access.
 
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