ESP8266 Thing Starter Kit

The SparkFun ESP8266 Thing Starter Kit is a great place to start learning about the Internet of Things (IoT)! Inside this kit you will find a ESP8266 Thing, a Serial Basic Breakout to program it (and USB cable), jumper wires, breadboard, LEDs, and plenty of headers. We've also included a pair of stackable 10-pin headers as well as 40 regular headers to connect your Serial Basic Breakout to the Thing or breadboard. If you have ever been interested in learning about IoT, Arduino, and wireless solutions, the SparkFun ESP8266 Thing Starter Kit is a perfect place to start!

The SparkFun ESP8266 Thing is a breakout and development board for the ESP8266 WiFi SoC “ a leading platform for Internet of Things (IoT) or WiFi-related projects. The Thing is low-cost and easy to use, and Arduino IDE integration can be achieved in just a few steps. We've made the ESP8266 easy to use by breaking out all of the modules pins, adding a LiPo charger, power supply, and all of the other supporting circuitry it requires.

Why the name? We lovingly call it the œThing due to it being the perfect foundation for your Internet of Things project. The Thing does everything from turning on an LED to posting data with [datastream](https://www.sparkfun.com/news/2413), and can be programmed just like any microcontroller. You can even program the Thing through the Arduino IDE by installing the [ESP8266 Arduino addon](https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/esp8266-thing-hookup-guide/installing-the-esp8266-arduino-addon).

**Note:** You may want to either use a second USB cable to power the board while programming or connect the solder jumper on the back of the board to provide power over the FTDI port.

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