Configuring the ESP8266 board

It's now time to configure the ESP8266 Wi-Fi chip so it can accept commands coming from the cloud. This is something we already saw earlier, but it's always good to remember the basics, as we'll make a more complicated sketch later in this chapter:

1. We first need to include the required libraries:

   #include <ESP8266WiFi.h>
   #include <PubSubClient.h>
   #include <aREST.h>

2. Then, we declare a Wi-Fi client and PubSub (MQTT) client:

   WiFiClient espClient;
   PubSubClient client(espClient);

3. After that, we create an instance of the aREST library:

   aREST rest = aREST(client);

4. You also need to enter your Wi-Fi name and password into the sketch:

   const char* ssid = "wifi-ssid";
   const char* password = "wifi-pass";

5. You can also give a name to your device:

   rest.set_id(device_id);
   rest.set_name("door_lock");

6. Finally, in the loop() function of the sketch, we handle the connection coming from the cloud:

   rest.handle(client);

It's now time to configure the board! Simply grab the code...