Dr Li Honghang, Dr Shang Liuji, Dr Yang Ping and Dr He Chenguang, who are members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, along with Lin and Bao Shuai, have written a book about ESPDuino, the well-known development board combining ESP8266 and Arduino UNO. The title of the book, which is written in Chinese, translates as Smart Guide to IoT Connectivity Based on ESPDuino (《基于 ESPDuino 的智慧物联开发宝典》).

The book is addressed to beginners, but also to people with advanced technical knowledge, as it starts with the basics and gradually progresses to fairly specialized topics. Advanced learners can focus on certain chapters they may find particularly interesting and useful, but beginners will benefit from following the book’s structure from beginning to end, as it systematically builds on simple concepts, leading to complex technical knowledge in later chapters.

ESP8266, our low-cost, low-power and high-performance chip can be easily integrated into various IoT systems. The fact that Arduino IDE can be used to run sketches on ESP8266 has resulted in an ever-increasing number of people who want to learn more about our product and how to use it. All writers of the ESPDuino book were aware of the community’s need for comprehensive and authoritative material which would serve a twofold purpose: enhance the already existing documentation for this development board in a way that would be specifically tailored to the needs of Chinese learners, but also use it for ESPDuino-based educational purposes at different stages of learning. The ESPDuino book is the writers’ response to Chinese people’s high demand for efficient learning in this field.

At this stage, the whole project is still being finalized, as the book has been distributed to select people who will provide feedback prior to its official publication. During this process, a number of books has been sent to teaching staff at Departments of Computer Sciences in Higher Education Institutions across China. Additionally, the Maker Institute, CAS, will introduce the book to certain Colleges and laboratories in Shenzhen.

Judging from the current version of the book, which we have already received, we can say that this is a remarkable piece of work which fills a gap in the Chinese documentation of ESPDuino. We look forward to the book’s official publication.