NodeMCU Firmware & Ecosystem

NodeMCU is an open-source Lua-based firmware for ESP8266 and ESP32 WiFi SoCs. It includes an interactive Lua shell and a set of modules for interacting with hardware peripherals.

• NodeMCU Official Documentation

Key Features

• Lua Interpretation: Allows for rapid prototyping without the need for traditional compilation.
• Event-Driven: Non-blocking network and timer events.
• Modular Design: Users can build custom firmware images containing only the modules they need (e.g., mqtt, http, u8g2, dht).
• File System: Includes integrated SPIFFS/LittleFS for storing Lua scripts and data.

Development & Flashing

Custom Firmware Builds

Since the full firmware is too large for many ESP8266 chips (4MB), developers typically use custom build services:

• NodeMCU Build Service (Cloud)

Flashing Tools

• NodeMCU PyFlasher: A simple GUI tool for flashing firmware.
• esptool.py: The professional CLI tool for all ESP flashing tasks.

GitHub Projects

• • nodemcu/nodemcu-firmware
    • C, Lua, MIT
    • The core ESP8266 firmware repository.
• • nodemcu/nodemcu-esp32
    • C, Lua, MIT
    • Port of the NodeMCU firmware to the ESP32 (based on ESP-IDF).

Resources

• NodeMCU Wiki
• NodeMCU Community Forum