Skip to main content

Introduction

ESP RainMaker Home App aims to provide end users with a great experience of controlling smart home appliances.

Home App allows end users to:

  • Conveniently and quickly connect smart devices
  • Remotely control home appliances from anywhere
  • Schedule devices to perform multiple functions

Salient Features​

Here are some salient features of ESP RainMaker Home App:

  • Product-specific friendly UI: Built for common use cases like lights, switches etc.
  • Simple Setup: Since the firmware to be used with ESP RainMaker Home app is pre-built, it is easy to setup.

Overall, ESP RainMaker Home App and firmware, together provide a user-friendly and accessible way for non-developers to experience ESP RainMaker's features. However, to use it in production, please get in touch with our sales team at sales@espressif.com.

Under the hood, the ESP RainMaker Home App is a hybrid app built using React Native. It makes use of ESP RainMaker App SDK and CDF components to seamlessly connect with the ESP RainMaker Cloud.

The following sections talk about how to quickly do device setup and start using the App in action.

Quick Start​

At the beginning, you need to prepare a suitable development kit to be used as the device hardware. The subsequent instructions use LED firmware as an example and recommend using the ESP32-C3-DevKit and ESP32-S3-DevKit as development kits for experiments. You can also try to flash your own developed firmware, but the firmware architecture needs to meet the firmware development architecture of ESP RainMaker.

App Download​

You can download ESP RainMaker Home App directly from the Google Play and Apple APP Store at the following links:

Preparing the hardware​

Make use of ESP LaunchPad for flashing the firmware example on the devkit. ESP LaunchPad is an online tool provided by Espressif, which has built-in sample firmwares, so you can directly select the firmware you want to flash for testing. The specific steps are as follows:

1. Connect devkit to the LaunchPad​

Firstly you need to connect the development kit to the computer via the USB port, and open LaunchPad website, which is shown below:

Click the upper right control button Connect, and the interface will pop up the USB serial port location, as shown in the following figure. Then select the serial port connected to the development kit and click confirm:

2. Flash the firmware​

After connecting the board to the LaunchPad, you need to erase the original firmware from the devkit to prevent flash-in failure. You need to click the DIY, and then click Erase Flash. After these operations, you can check if the erase is successful in the Console page.

After completing the erase operation, you need to go back to the home page and click the Quick Start tab on the top menu, and use Select Application to choose the firmware. Then you should choose ESP32-C3 in ESP Chipset Type, and click Flash.

On successful completion of the flash operation, there will be a window popping out to inform you that the example project is flashed successfully.

3. Prepare for configuration​

You need to go to the Console page, and click Reset Device to reset the devkit which is required when you flash the new firmware. The terminal console in the center of the page will show the booting progress and the device QR Code will appear, which is as shown below.

Device Configuration​

To configure the device, you need to first sign up for an account (if you are already an ESP RainMaker user, just continue with sign-in).

As shown in the picture below, you need to fill in your email address and set your password, and then you need to verify your email address to create your account.

Thereafter, follow these steps:

  • Log in to the APP, and click ＋ in the top right corner on the home page, then choose Scan QR code.
  • After the scan is completed, you will enter the device network interface, and you need to select the network that the device will join. Click Next to begin configuration.
  • After completing the configuration, enter the device setup interface, you need to name the added devices.
  • After the information is set, you can go to the main application interface, and can see the added device control card is already on the home page.
  • You can click the Switch button to control the status of devices. Click the device card and you can try more Rainmaker features.

At this point you have completed the entire ESP RainMaker process from firmware flashing to networking, and you can experience the features and services offered by ESP RainMaker by selecting a different firmware flashed in the same way as the LaunchPad.

For further usage info, head over to the App usage guide.

On this page