Published March 17, 2020

How to install ESP32 Board in Arduino IDE

You will learn how to install and use your ESP32 Board in Arduino IDE

BeginnerProtip2 hours81,303

How to install ESP32 Board in Arduino IDE

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Espressif ESP32 WiFi BLE Development Board

USB-A to Micro-USB Cable

Software apps and online services

Arduino IDE

If you haven't installed the latest Arduino IDE, you can download it here https://www.arduino.cc/en/main/software

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Before going to the project make sure that you've already installed the latest version of Arduino IDE on your desktop (Windows, Linux, or MAC OS X). You can download Arduino IDE on https://www.arduino.cc/en/main/software.

If you have installed Arduino IDE before, I really suggest you to update (uninstall and install the new one) the software, otherwise it may not work.

Installing ESP32 Add-on in Arduino IDE

To add ESP32 Board in your Arduino IDE, follow these instructions :

1. Open your Arduino IDE, go to File>Preferences

2. Put https://dl.espressif.com/dl/package_esp32_index.json into the “Additional Board Manager URLs” field as shown in the figure below. Then, click the “OK” button

Note: if you already have another boards (i.e ESP8266 boards URL), you can separate the URLs with a comma like this:

https://dl.espressif.com/dl/package_esp32_index.json, http://arduino.esp8266.com/stable/package_esp8266com_index.json

3. Then go to the Boards Manager. Go to Tools > Board > Boards Manager

4. Go to the search bar and type ESP32 then install ESP32 by Espressif Systems

5. Wait a few seconds then you've installed it

Note: Some cases will have an error message when downloading the add-on

Error message while downloading new boards

If you find this problem, go to File > Preferences then click on "C:\Users\Arbi\AppData\Local\Arduino15"

Delete all files in that directory and repeat from step 1 to 4.

I have the same problem and it worked with this solution :). Let's go to the next step

Testing your ESP32 Board

1. Open Arduino IDE and plug the ESP32 Board to your computer.

2. Select your Board in Tools > Board menu (in my case "DOIT ESP32 DEVKIT V1")

3. Select the Communication Port, go to Tools > Port > (in my case it's COM15)

4. Open the example code for testing your ESP32, go to Examples > WiFi > WiFiScan

5. Press upload button on a WiFiScan sketch and wait a few seconds

6. Open the Arduino IDE Serial Monitor at a baud rate of 115200

7. Press the ESP32 on-board EN (Enable) button and you will see the networks available near your ESP32 board:

Note: If you have a problem while uploading the sketch and you get this error message “A fatal error occurred: Failed to connect to ESP32: Timed out… Connecting…“. It means that your ESP32 is not in flashing/uploading mode.

The solution: Hold down the BOOT button in your hardware (ESP32 Board) and after you see the "Connecting..." message release the button.

Those are the steps for installing your ESP32 Board in Arduino IDE

WiFi Scan Example Code

 /*
 *  This sketch demonstrates how to scan WiFi networks.
 *  The API is almost the same as with the WiFi Shield library,
 *  the most obvious difference being the different file you need to include:
 */
#include "WiFi.h"

void setup()
{
    Serial.begin(115200);

    // Set WiFi to station mode and disconnect from an AP if it was previously connected
    WiFi.mode(WIFI_STA);
    WiFi.disconnect();
    delay(100);

    Serial.println("Setup done");
}

void loop()
{
    Serial.println("scan start");

    // WiFi.scanNetworks will return the number of networks found
    int n = WiFi.scanNetworks();
    Serial.println("scan done");
    if (n == 0) {
        Serial.println("no networks found");
    } else {
        Serial.print(n);
        Serial.println(" networks found");
        for (int i = 0; i < n; ++i) {
            // Print SSID and RSSI for each network found
            Serial.print(i + 1);
            Serial.print(": ");
            Serial.print(WiFi.SSID(i));
            Serial.print(" (");
            Serial.print(WiFi.RSSI(i));
            Serial.print(")");
            Serial.println((WiFi.encryptionType(i) == WIFI_AUTH_OPEN)?" ":"*");
            delay(10);
        }
    }
    Serial.println("");

    // Wait a bit before scanning again
    delay(5000);
}

Credits

Arbi Abdul Jabbaar

3 projects • 42 followers

I am a student of National Technology of Institute, Indonesia majoring in Electrical Engineering. I've developed hardware for about 3 years.

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How to install ESP32 Board in Arduino IDE

How to install ESP32 Board in Arduino IDE

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Software apps and online services

Story

Installing ESP32 Add-on in Arduino IDE

Testing your ESP32 Board

Code

WiFi Scan Example Code

Credits

Arbi Abdul Jabbaar

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