[NTP] Improve WiFI SSID and credentials input with a Web frontend accessed through a generic WiFi access point created by the Pico when not configured.

[UltrashRicco]

Hello André, I am still on FW v6.00 but I read the user manual for v9.00, congrats on the updates!

I have been playing around with RGB Led matrixes, and stumbled upon another project using NTP. It is a smart wall clock project for the ESP32 microcontoller, which is WiFi and Bluetooth enabled.

The interesting this is that upon flashing the firmware from an IDE and booting for the first time, the microcontroller creates a WiFi access point with generic credentials to which the user can connect and access a web GUI that enables him/her to configure the SSID and credentials of the actual available WiFi network.

The webpage also uses WebSerial API and allows for flashing the microcontroller straight from the webpage, then connecting to it over serial from a web GUI where the WiFi networks wan be scanned and the SSID selected and credentials input from the webpage.

Upon configuring that and rebooting, the device works and offers a web configuration interface accessible through a browser pointing at the device's IP address, in order to configure such settings as 12/24 hours, time zone, brightness and the like.

The project can be found here: https://clockwise.page/ (note that the webpage allows to flash the microcontroller by USB straight from the webpage!) and on GitHub too: https://github.com/jnthas/clockwise

I found that interesting and wanted to share the idea, as it is such an easy way to setup the WiFi credentials and some settings too, really taking advantage of the connectivity of the Pico W. Yet I have no clue whether this would be feasible with the Raspberry Pi Pico W microcontroller (I cannot see why not though).

Food for thought.
Thanks again and best regards!

[UltrashRicco]

Digging a little further, I learnt that it is the "WiFiManager" library that allows for the creation of an access point to access and configure the microcontroller. It is a library for ESP32 initially, but variants for the Pico W do exist too: https://github.com/search?q=wifimanager+pico