Such a bright screen! 🐸

You are so welcome! But where have you been? Well, now you've found me, so happy viewing!

I totally agree with "... the few that can hack into my network have bigger fish to fry." Our home Wi-Fi networks are sort of secure to casual kiddie bedroom hackers but as real hackers can bring the British Post Office to its knees I'm guessing our home networks would be hacked in minutes!

Glad it was helpful! Don't forget to watch Part 2, coming to a screen near you soon!

Thank you very much! 👍

Obviously tailor-made just for you, SteveX!

Glad you like them, Paul!

Glad you liked it!

Glad it was helpful!

Thank you! Will do! I don't have an accent, everyone else does!

Glad it was helpful!

You got that right, Christian! 👍

Yes, it works well. Just don't upload code that hangs the device or you'll be connecting that USB cable again! Not that I've ever done that. 🤥Nope. 🤥Not me.

Sounds perfect! In the UK we don't have mailboxes, as such. The postman must put all the letter through the letter-box, built into most front doors. But a sensor to detect something there would work too.

Glad you liked it!

Glad you liked it!

Well, I did mention changing the range in which your router hands out DHCP addresses, although I suspect most users won't know their router well enough to do this. Assuming you did, then if you then use the same IP address for two ESP32s, well, you'll get a conflict although how that is reported remains to be seen. The other way is to tell the router to always give the same IP address for the ESP32s MAC address, but that's depending on your router just a little too much.

I'm not keen on static either. But there are pros and cons with any IP assignment method. A static ip assignment in the pool range might not cause a future conflict if the ESP is on most of the time as likely DHCP will possibly check if the IP candidate is already in use.

DHCP reservation would be better, but I wouldn't be so emphatic about hardcoded ip addresses. The main issue is that a device could demand a specific ip that's already be in use. But if you define the range of ip addresses dhcp can use, numbers outside of that are safe to hardcode. The other issue is the decentralization, but that's just a matter of being organized.

Well, it's never too late to jump ships mid-stream! How do you program you HTML projects?

@@RalphBacon Well, I am not the greatest programmer on earth. Just straight forward using client.println( .. ). My dream is to realize nice gauge sites with HTML + ..

Glad it helped! Well, will help, if you try it out. Remember, demo code in the GitHub.

After all this time, Jorgo, you cannot serious consider yourself a "newbie" any longer?!? 😉 Anyway, thanks for the feedback.

Great suggestion!

Thanks for sharing!

I do that too (belt and braces) but recently I've lapsed, secure in the knowledge that I don't need to touch my router; this static address is honoured and the router just leaves it alone. Of course, it's wise to tell the router to NOT use DCHP addresses in the range that you are now allocating static addresses. And don't forget to change the code (IP address) for each device. I've never forgotten that, not once. 🤥 What? No, really I 🤥 haven't. 😁😉

You're welcome, Danny 👍

"One day" is just another way of saying "never", Ronen. 😢😲 (OK, I took this from the film _Knight & Day_ but it's true).

@@RalphBacon I already have two ESP32 dev boards lying around inside my tool boxes and waiting to be used with WiFi 😊

Great way to track what's telling the information 👍

i do this too!

More to come! Part 2 already been thought about...

@@RalphBacon great, thanks.

I must admit to editing my Windows 'hosts' file so I can access my ESP32 devices from my PC, but I've not used the ESPmDNS library (yet). I will take a look. Presumably, you must create a separate (additional) DNS resolver for your local network using this?

Nice of you to say! We have to have some sort of sense of humour with all our rain! Tally-ho!

Noted! I knew that Part 2 would be needed...

@@RalphBacon Ralph. Will ChatGPT write HTML code? Could it write the Part 2 type tasks?

@@RalphBacon you may find this interesting. ukposts.info/have/v-deo/jaCop4epmmh7zac.html

Noted! 👍

I agree, as we haven't learned displaying variables and receiving data in web pages, nor multiple pages and embedded links allowing one to easily go from one page to another. Plenty of tutorials out there on single column pages but not so much making neat columns, especially when I/O is involved

Sorry to hear about your drunken 😲accident (what do you mean, you were stone-cold sober?) and I wish you a speedy and pain-free recovery. You'll find OTA is a bit of a non-event when you do it this way; it "just works". You can also detect when an OTA is underway to you can stop processing stuff in the main loop (your ESP32 continues to run whilst the OTA happens, albeit more slowly). I'll explain more in Part 17 of this video!

@@RalphBacon Thanks!

Thank you, glad you liked it!

No need! In fact, if you look at the .ini file I use, I don't even mention partitioning because we don't specifically use that feature. I'm guessing that, by default, we're using all the memory for program space but I can't guarantee that. We'll cover that soon too.

@@RalphBacon I think you need an ota partition for ota to work. Both programs are actually in flash at the same time so the esp32 can revert back to the old program if something goes wrong. The partition you are using would already have an ota partition.

Thank you! Cheers!

It works the same for IDE 1.8.x

@@Cptnbond Many thanks. That info helps. Will give it a test.

@Bob Owen Yes, as Sgt-Bond has indicated, it will work with all versions of the Arduino IDE, but I do recommend you download the new version 2.0.x and take advantage of its new features, not least of which includes code completion. 😉

@@RalphBacon Trying out the new Arduino IDE 2.0.X version is on my list of things to do. It's only that I hate change and tend to stick with that which has worked before. Thankfully, there are content providers like yourself who make things easier by providing great resource materials. Thank you.

Yup, on the list!

Indeed, that is Part 2, out soon!

You're welcome!

Glad you liked it, Stu! Part 2 and Part 3 out "shortly".

Yes, Part 2!

And ASync web server and OTAUpdate of course

Sounds like you have a fully fledged auto-update system there, Lindsay. Did you publish on GitHub?

No, not published anywhere public. It's a small part of an ongoing project. My intent was to make firmware updates super easy for non-technical people.. read computer illiterate.. "how do I save an attachment from an email to my hard drive?" and I wanted the ability to send software updates to many users with the least amount of my time and effort - rather than maintaining a user mailing list/database. I work as Tech Support for an importer/distributor in the Point Of Sale industry in Australia and I've seen some major international receipt printer/barcode scanner manufacturers write clunky flash update/Wi-Fi config utility software locked to one OS, requiring cable connections and I wanted to avoid all the pain points I've seen others foist onto their customers. Upon figuring out how I could do this, I may have made statements to the effect that I've created the easiest IoT device to connect to. Everything in my project is web based, OS agnostic, so end users can do everything from a browser - starting with out of the box config: 3x Wi-Fi client settings: home, work and away (through esp32's AP feature) and Social website account creation. All the user needs to know is that the device will broadcast an SSID (product name_serial number) and will respond on a static IP address with a default password that can be immediately changed. The initial brief was a multi digit 7 segment display with buttons to cycle through the data.. And maybe IOS and Android apps via Bluetooth etc. The gitHub repo I've cloned/forked is by romehein called ESPecial and ESPInstaller. I found his logic intriguing, freeing and limiting all at the same time, due to the scope of my project potentially having 3 distinct end user groups and product names with the same underlying hardware. Sorry, for being intentionally vague. I've added extra fields to his JSON structure to allow me, at the first run time, to load one of the 3 product software branches and thereafter it is locked into that branch. I've completely restructured his project into a library with external (??) reference for AsynchWebServer object and Wi-Fi credentials that can be passed in during instantiation or starting... Been a while since I looked at that code. So that the OTA library uses the same instance that the rest of the sketch uses - avoiding dueling web servers on the same ip:port I'm pretty new to gitHub Desktop and how to publish forks etc.. even after a bunch of reading. I'll have to think about how to publish one aspect of the project without giving away details I hope to make money on... one day... ;) demo repo, demo paths, demo apps with the common OTAUpdate library etc. Additionally, I don't know if my code is up to the standard that others will appreciate. Having seen other repos, some people aren't so concerned with this. 🤐 I need to learn more about the R string function you used... I've used HTML, CSS, JavaScript and sketch variables all encapsulated in C (C++??) strings and passed onto browser.. it's uuuugly, but it works. I'm a VB6 programmer at heart, so C strings take me some time. 👀

The landing page (as AP) will display the ip address it has been given as a Wi-Fi client and can also use MDNS for Mac, iOS, (Linux??) and windows clients with bonjour loaded.. sadly not available on Android from my reading.

The problem is that 90% of all beginners could not configure a server if their lives depended on it. Even if they did get one up and running they could not fix it if (when) it goes wrong. Lots of suggestions like this but sometimes KISS rulz!

@@RalphBacon oh, so challenge... refused ;-) Don't underestimate your audience ;) It can be hosted on AWS, Github or one command in docker

Works for me!

Using static IP addresses is great but your router needs to be told not to issue addresses beyond a certain range (where you have your static IP range). So in the DHCP section of your router, you might say the range for IP addresses is 192.168.1.2 to 192.168.1.100 and that's it. You can then assign static address from 192.168.1.101 to 192.168.1.254 (careful! your router might be in that range) and the DHCP will not affect it. Alternatively (and I do not do this as I want better control) you can have the lease time set to "infinite" and check the box that says "always give the same IP address to this MAC address". But you are then depending more on the router.

I didn't notice that at all! I will have to check. Same compiler, same framework... how intriguing!

It could be platformIO natively adds support libraries that Arduino 2.0 does not.

Indeed it does, Byron, and I will show this in more detail in Part 2.

Yes, sounds very do-able but unfortunately not for noobs who struggle with the construct of a simple HTML anchor link!

Not to mention the IoT couldn't be mobile or would cease to work at all if the web server were down.

@@danman32raspberry pi is mobile, cease to work like no power to the esp, should only be used for non critical systems, nice to have, also esp could still react to other simple queries with plain text answers. query like ip/text

That will be Part 3, due soon. "Soon", as in Arduino soon, Real World about 1 month, maybe less. 😮

Well, the ESP32 runs FreeRTOS natively, so I'm not sure how different you expect it to be!

I believe you can use the libraries with an Arduino, after all we're not fiddling about with registry values here. You'll have to read the GitHub pages for each of the library and if it states it supports a Wi-Fi enabled UNO then you know it will work.

Yes, another video showing something useful (erm, like turning an LED on and off?) is on the cards.

I'd like to see something a bit more complex than LED on/off. Plenty out there for on/off. Perhaps temp monitoring and adjustable thresholds.

@@danman32 check out random nerd!

I had a lot of various IPEX antennas included with various devices but you can buy them on AliExpress for a very low price. I have "proper", case mounted and adjustable antennas, stick on ones that you can hide inside or outside of an enclosure, simple springs (mainly for the HC-12 devices I showed recently) and these ones which are probably the worst as they don't stay in place! PCB antennas (such as the ones normally included with ESP32 devices) work well enough for home use. Switching to a case-mounted, orientable device (not easy as you have to un/solder a 0Ω resistor the size of a speck of dust on an ESP32 device) is like chalk and cheese, range-wise. I use these to communicate from sensors in my attic to my workshop (about 10 metres away) and it's faultless.

Writing it to a variable is fine but you lose the overall visual structure. That doesn't matter if you know HTML but beginners need a few visual clues of how it's put together, I feel! You will still need to "break" the raw literal to inject variable values (although JavaScript would work too). Or you can modify the entire string using C++ function to replace, for example, placeholders with actual values. So if your raw literal contained the word @parm1 then you could do a string substitution of that value with an actual variable value.

@@RalphBacon ... and I have the advantage that I can very easily incorporate queries. f.e.: if ( iAnzFritzverbrauchersteckdosen == 2 ){ cTmp += "Aktueller Schaltp. 2 bei:" + String(iSchaltenBeiWatt[1]) + " W"; cTmp += "Akt. P FritzVerbraucher 2:" + String(fVerbrauchswatt[1],0)+ " W/ "+ String(iTemperatur[1])+ "°C"; }

Only in German can we have a word like Fritzverbrauchersteckdosen. Why can't they just say FritzSmartPlug - all I hear is English expressions on Antenne1 all day so they are obviously understood! So ein Mist!

@@RalphBacon 😂 yes - i am ashamed of it too - but i was just too lazy to adjust the code

Don't think for a minute that PCBWay is not running a profitable, commercial business! When you order a PCB, it gets put on a large sheet with dozens of others. So, potentially, lots of $5 orders. Factor in the low cost of labour in the Far East (and probably the standard FR-4 substrate material too, but I'm guessing) and they will still not make anything approaching a loss. Whilst we hobbyists just order (up to) 10 pieces with a maximum size of 100mm x 100mm, there are probably many businesses ordering much larger and more complex designs - remember they do some mind-blowing advanced PCBs too, albeit at a cost. A business could easily order 5,000 boards (my electronics engineer consultant tells me). Many other PCB manufacturers would not even consider such a "small" run 😲 I do not know how they calculate their shipping, but there they offer some (much) lower cost routes (especially to the UK) so I can't believe they subsidise it from that side of things. What I do know is that in my experience with them, their products are without a doubt second-to-none, from the base PCB all the way through the solder masks and silk screen printing (I once looked at one under the microscope in a video, amazing quality). If this were not the case I would not feature them as sponsors on my videos!

If the TX power was the issue with you then that's fine, you've solved it. But if you have a Revision 0 of the ESP32 (shown on boot up) then throw it away because it will never play nicely. (ukposts.info/have/v-deo/bnJ8aJyxiZd3qI0.html )

@@RalphBacon Yes I remember that video. Fortunately I have rev 1 and it is connecting and running very stable. I remember reading how wonky those early esp32 boards were and that is why I avoided them until now. Looking forward to part two of this video.

Yes you are right.. Its just painful to realize if your esp project won't join a WiFi again if it lost connection and doesn't scan and join :-/ kind of pointless to have WiFi in the first place then :-/

There is a library that allows multiple SSIDs to be scanned and it will join the one with the best signal. Of course, you still need to know the correct password (I'm sure you could design a simple, encrypted password storer using LittleFS). The library is called WiFiMulti.h from Espressif (bit.ly/3HONTlL ) and detailed here: randomnerdtutorials.com/esp32-wifimulti/

@@RalphBacon does said library automatically join the SSID autmatically or not? If not and you have to enter the password each time it wants to connect, that's not fitting my criteria.

Automatically? Anything joining a Wi-Fi network has to know the SSID and Password, however that is supplied. You can't "just join", although you can programmatically make it appear that's what happens, without any manual password entry.

@@RalphBacon that's what I've been saying: enter and store SSID and password, or remember and store recent connections. That way when you come near one stored, it will reconnect. Like your phone and laptop does.

My dress sense has never let me dow----- hang on, PJs? 😲😢😁

By all means. It's more powerful (it exposes more of the bare ESP32 metal) and in a production environment I guess it would be mandatory. But for us hobbyists, I think I'll stick with the (easier to use) Arduino framework.

@@RalphBacon it's just TEH showing off again🙂

Yes. Absolutely. And I will be showing you a way of doing this in Part 2 and Part 3, so keep tuned and keep practicing with Part 1 for now!

If you are using an ESP32 why not get it all working _first_ using Wi-Fi and then make a copy of the sketch and use the EthernetENC module; that way you might find where the issues or conflicts lie? I have only used that module using an Arduino (video #74, ukposts.info/have/v-deo/fmKeeqKEjbCJkYE.html ) but in theory it should work with an ESP32 (or there is another library for that hardware platform).

@@RalphBacon Thank you so much for the reply and advice Ralph. I have tried many varied combinations trying to get this to work and I cannot fathom it out so I've gone back to just using EthernetENC and given up on trying to get the AsyncElegantOTA. It was only me being lazy so I can update the ESP32 without having to plug it in to a PC.

The 'problem' with your solution is this: _"I've written a separate library for doing automatic updates by running a local web server."_ Most newbies to web-enabling would not have your skills in doing this although I'm trying to think of an easy way of implementing this for such noobs.

@@RalphBacon If you are interested in showing it, i could make my source code open source and you could just showcase it. :)

Not sure what you mean by "four parts". Do you not compile a sketch with the standard entry point of 0x8000? How do the other bits get uploaded (without OTA)?

Well, OTA could connect to the device in AP mode (or, perhaps, your app in running in that mode on the device). However, I don't see how it would be simpler; it just works when running as a standard wi-fi client (STA)!

Yes it will. Your new code must be able to accept future OTA updates. You should test out a new version of code on a test device before uploading it to your live device!

You're talking about a "pull" update, where the device checks for an update and pulls it down (just like your PC/Mac does). You could use an ESP32 for that by creating a simple web server with some memory for the flash image. I will have to explore this one day.

So the microcontroller is actively accessing a server to check for a software update? Is this a standard library function you use to do this, or is it homegrown?

@@RalphBacon homegrown: it's PHP. The Version is"g".

@@allinclusive5762 I think he's referring to the ESP32 side of the project.

@@JCWren no - this is universal ( i mostly use the D1mini )

@@allinclusive5762 OK. He's asking (I think) how you're doing this on the D1Mini side. What library or homegrown C/C++ code are you using to check the server for the image, download if present, and then install it for the upgrade. And if that's not what Ralph is asking, well, then I am :)

No idea, got me beat there! 😆

rewatch the video!

Yes, this is fine if you need the ESP32 to sleep lots. Personally, I don't like the approach because it can update itself (and hang, not work) at literally any hour of the day. I like to watch and see what happens! Perhaps I should have more confidence in my code! 😁 But, as I say, if the ESP32 needs to sleep then that's a good option you describe.

Well, if you want to use the ESP-IDF from Espressif, be my guest (and may the force be with you). Be aware that the Espressif IDF does not have any Arduino-like syntactic sugar; everything must be coded by you or use their implementations. But of course it can be done.

I haven't, and with good reason! It looks pretty complex for my modest needs. A bit like using a full blown NodeRed system to control a few peripherals in my workshop. I'm not doing that either! Well, not this year, anyway.

Indeed, and I am using the newer version in my latest project; it was just a matter of replacing one library with another (and that loop( ) call). That said, all my old project will continue to use AsyncElegantOTA as they should work going forward (and if they do ever stop working on a recompile I'll replace the library).

@@RalphBacon Before I suggested that this code be updated, I should have said thank you for this very helpful video, since I used this concept in a few of my projects after seeing it.

Hmm, the RasPi is not really a microcontroller, it's more or a SoC or probably a SoM. It has Wi-Fi capabilities right out of the box so coding an example web page using Python, and using the RasPi as a Web Server is probably a no-brainer. Probably.

But adding in variables is not such a trivial task, wherever the HTML is sited. But certainly, having the pages in a file would be a good idea.

I hadn't thought of that. Plus it appears the OTA allows you to update files in the ESP storage so you could in theory update the HTML without updating the whole code.

Quick off the mark, today, Yogesh!

Catch-22 perhaps? You can't upload to a device with OTA without knowing its IP address. Obvs. But assuming you have uploaded at least once to a device, you can write a sketch to scan for all networks it can find (and the signal level) and then ask for a password from you, whilst it operates (temporarily) in AP mode with a known IP address (so you can talk to it on its private network). There are many examples out there.

Yes, it is but I do feel this is "good enough" for beginners to get to grips with things on the ESP32. Perhaps I'll introduce that topic separately.

What too much barking at the screen Fred. :-)

@@TheEmbeddedHobbyist No just up the wrong tree🙂

@@fredflintstone1 lol

If you were to download the example(s) onto an ESP32 (which I know you have, Barney) it might make more sense to you! Go on, try it out!

@@RalphBacon I will try🙂 I see you say there will be a part 2 I best order some more Asprin🙂

Um... this works fine with an ESP8266 but not an Arduino Uno/Nano because an Arduino hasn't got Wi-Fi. Is that what you meant?

Wake up, Lez, 💤WAKE UP, you were 💤dreaming again! 😁

@@RalphBacon seen it done with GitHub but I like Google drive folders. I do wonder what changes it would really need to the GitHub sketch. If I get some time I'm going to hit my head against that wall but I'm busy building ebike things

I've always called them chevrons although angle brackets work too. At work we called them chevrons too, must be a British thing, as we have road signs warning of sharp deviations with chevrons, see here: bit.ly/UKchevrons

Who knew that a VPN doesn't allow a connection to a local network?

@@RalphBacon😴

@@RalphBacon i took a weekend recently to learn css and js and it's worth it because then you know how to make it easier as you have an idea how to add buttons using the built in objects added to the css file. the only thing that annoyed me was that you have to order the css file or something out of order will undo something you spent a ton of time to plan earlier. makes your code better though being aware of those things.

Arduino IDE 1 8.x is rock solid if you want stabilty. Personally I prefer this over the 2.x series.

Not really a helpful comment. Arduino is not unstable in my experience as the framework has been ported from IDF by Espressif so they know what they are doing, so I guess they are not stupid, either. In fact, there are some features in the Arduino ESP32 framework that are not present in IDF because Arduino users expect them!

@@RalphBacon thisr party libraries have mostly some questionable untested code to pull for public for later to find out about bugs and crashes. I'm not sure if you even realize of what you said from programming perspective because IDF is SDK not a framework with spaghetti greasy code

Lectured? Really? 🤷‍♂️ You know this channel is for beginners and inexperienced coders, right? Who probably won't have your obvious level of expertise so they do get the basics included, I'm afraid. And doesn't include talk of setting a router to (hopefully) always give the same IP address; this is not about networking, it's about ESP32 stuff. As for the hardcoding of credentials, I don't know how often I have to say (or write) this, but this is a DEMO! 🤦‍♂️

@@RalphBacon A lecture is an educational talk given to an audience, so yes, really. I mean the OTA updating is super useful for ESP32 development in general but it has remained quite out of sight in UKposts maker videos. Has nothing to do with crafting basic web pages though 😆

Well, I'm sorry you stopped watching but my videos have to assume no prior knowledge to allow the content to make sense to beginners. What I suggest is that you can watch at 1.25x speed (or even 1.5x 😮) to get to the bits you want to watch. I do this all the time with other UKposts videos (not Arduino-related, so I am that beginner).

@@RalphBacon As I said, why do you talk to much to explain for beginners? Just point them into right direction and go on with what you are doing. I'm sure you never made any survey about the level of your followers. I guess most of them knows and understands what you are talking about. All I'm saying is skip the boring talk and get to the point without wasting time.

Thanks for the feedback and suggestion 😉

Well, yes, a name is preferable to an IP address although it's been my experience that it's always good practice to know the IP address of key devices in your network. But maybe this could be a Part 3 of this video? 😉I'm sure viewers would find it useful.

@@RalphBacon agreed knowing the ip address of key devices, but if you run the DHCP reservation tables, you'll know those addresses and then have a live, one-stop-shop to view these.

There is an issue, correct and I'm very disappointed that me-no-dev has not addressed this after several months. But you can use the latest platform if you comment out the line in the platformio.ini line and enable the line to download that ESPAsyncWebServer library from the GitHub (see my example in my GitHub, it will be obvious).

Yes, sounds neat and I bet it acts as a DNS server that ties in to your network. I'll take a quick look!

To communicate with any device on a network, you have to be on that network. The way 3rd parties do it is to connect the ESP32 to the cloud network and then you send stuff up to the cloud network from your home Wi-Fi, thus using them as a middle-man. The alternative is use a cheap, low power device (like an ESP-01) that just does the same as I described. It connects to "the other" network, receives data and sends it to the local ESP32 via a serial connection. Sounds clunky but no more so than using a 3rd party network.

@@RalphBacon I'm sorry I know I must be missing something, but if the ESP is acting as a server, why can't it serve the information regardless of what network I'm on. Isn't it just a matter of connecting to it's external IP address? I'm sure that it would involve opening ports, and thing that I only have limited knowledge about. Sorry to go on but I just can't get my head around it.

The ESP32 can indeed run as a server, but you then are connecting to it via your own home router (as you say) from elsewhere. Yes, you can "just" set up port forwarding to route all external requests for, say, port 80 to a single ESP32 device on your home Wi-Fi. Some ports won't be (easily) allowed by your browser but ports 81, 82 are OK (I've tested those). Port 103 was disallowed by Chrome. You can force it on a PC/Mac but on my phone it's just an app and verboten! Once you open that port, of course, you are increasing the risk that a knowledgeable person will hack your entire home network. I don't know how likely that is but I'd want to know before doing it. Incidentally, my CCTV allows this but I can't find an entry in my port forwarding page so it's a mystery!

It sounds like your environment for the ESP32 is a bit mangled; I strongly suggest you archive it somewhere off your beaten (Windows) path and start again. BTW this will not work with the ESP8266 (I think you discovered that). Once you have the new environment, don't just install libraries willy-nilly that are not intended for your device; think about which ones are required (my demo sketch shows this clearly) and you are _guaranteed_ a successful build. Yup, guaranteed, but only if you use my demo sketch as the starting point - then you can expand on that for your own projects.

Not sure to what you are referring. Can you clarify please?

@@RalphBacon if I have it correct. In this example, you have to be on the same network as the ESP32 to connect to it from your browser. It seems to do the same thing from another network, using the world wide Web. You have to use a 3rd party like Arduino cloud.

@@fenceup07944931177 To connect to the esp32 you would need the external address of your network and setup port forwarding so that you router wil let in external traffic. This is pretty insecure though unless there is some security turned on in the esp32, some kind of authentication. I am reading using a vpn provides safety for accessing the esp32 from outside your network. A vpn will make your outside computer look like its on the internal network. I have not read up too much on this though.

Assuming a certain about of "sense", you won't put it on a public IP. You also won't forward a port to it such that you can access it publicly. You might use a VPN (an actual VPN, not a Nord et al scam). Fine. Your ESP32 is behind a firewall, it's safe, right? Not if I manage to get malware on your PC to scan your network for a list of different OTA library signatures. Ideally download the firmware from the devices, inject the payload and reflash. More stealth that way. Otherwise you can just wipe the device with your own firmware. That firmware establishes an outbound web connection to "phone home" and say, "I'm in! What do you want me to do?" The firmware I would write for it would have a port scanner and port tunneling software, allowing me to bridge myself into your network and browse around to my hearts content. Maybe open a few more backdoors to keep my access if one gets discovered or blocked.

Well, yes, nothing is secure in this world. Just ask the British Post Office how they got hacked with Ransomware over the last month and prevented us all sending parcels abroad. Yes, really. But do you really think hackers are out to cause mischief, or to make (lots of) money? I don't think my public-facing ESP32 even features on their radar! (He said, fingers crossed). And no, this was NOT a challenge 😲

@@1over137 If you manage to access the ESP with a private IP address you have bigger problems then concerning about a ESP firmware flash .....

If you notice, I didn't even mention exposing such a device to the outside world! Apart from requiring some router knowledge (IP forwarding) it would also require that additional level of security to stop your neighbour potentially accessing your devices. I'm pretty sure a serious hacker is not interested in my ESP32 Pond Heater Controller 😁😆😉

@@RalphBacon maybe not the pond controller itself but as OP said, your ESP can then be used as a jump point to the rest of your network. It has already happened with commercial IoT devices. A smart light bulb or some other IoT was used to hack into the HVAC of a hotel in Vegas What's ironic was that not long before the hack, I attended a convention by a network security vendor in that hotel that used that example to make their point.

You can protect Elegant OTA with a user/password combination and additionally, as the `/update` path can be changed to e.g. `/t07pNueykXYi5XUA6tEAxIhXmP3owT7H`, is't quite secure... But securest would be to switch WiFi off. Your have to live with compromises. You can also pull the firmware from a trusted server on startup... Then you don't expose any interface. I do that for my deep-sleep on battery project.