To show how this kind of tracking works we can program a nodemcu in arduino to sniff the air for packets from any device we want to track turning on an led when it s detected nearby.
Esp8266 wifi device scanner.
The construction of the scanner is simple in design and only requires three main components.
Wi fi scanner is useful for normal access point users who need to find out the signal strength distribution for their wireless network at home or choose a position for their access.
The nodemcu is the easiest way to program and experiment with esp8266controllers.
The api is almost the same as with the wifi shield library the most obvious difference being the different file you need to include.
Smartphones and other wi fi enabled devices send radio signals called probe frames to locate nearby wireless networks which makes them easy to track by listening for their unique mac address.
Last month i wrote a series of posts about reducing the power consumption of the esp8266 showing how i got the power consumption of a weather station down to 54 μah per 5 minute reporting cycle.
Scan to connect a mobile phone to a hot spot you typically open wi fi settings app list available networks and then pick the hot spot you need.
In the instructable i will use nodemcumodule version 0 9.
Here an led is connected to the gpio pins of esp8266 01 and it is used for the indication of open wifi availability led will be blinking while searching for an open wifi led will be on continuously when an open wifi is.
Esp8266 nodemcu wi fi scanner allows you to easily locate visible wireless networks and its corresponding information.
You can also list the networks with esp8266 and here is how.
The code for this tutorial will be very simple and since we only want to scan and get some information about the surrounding wifi networks we will do all the coding on the setup function.
Such a device can be used as a troubleshooting tool to determine if the suspect router is transmitting a wireless signal.
Include esp8266wifi h void setup serial.
This sketch demonstrates how to scan wifi networks.
Esp8266 modules are great low cost stand alone controllers with built in wi fi.
The esp8266 wi fi soc microcontroller an analog meter ammeter and an led.
The objective of this post is to explain how to scan the surrounding wifi networks with the esp8266.
This instructable however can easily be done with any other module.
Set wifi to station mode and disconnect from an ap if it was previously connected.
This program obtains the network name ssid signal strength rssi and mac address security.