Chapter 2: Talking to the Earth – Sensors and Actuators
As we have discussed in Chapter 1, Getting Started with ESP32, Internet of Things (IoT) devices interact with the physical world. They collect data from the immediate environment and react based on a condition or schedule in the form of a physical action, a log, or maybe a trigger of another event in its operating environment. How they do this is by means of sensors and actuators.
In this chapter, we're going to use several sensors and actuators by interfacing with an ESP32 development kit (devkit) and will learn about different types of communication protocols.
We'll cover the following topics:
- Toolchain installation, programming, and debugging ESP32
- Warming up: Basic input/output (I/O) with buttons, potentiometers (pots), and light-emitting diodes (LEDs)
- Working with sensors
- Working with actuators