The Adafruit WICED Feather was already feature packed with helpful libraries for services like Adafruit AIO, AWS IoT, and Twitter, as well as support for the latest security standards like TLS 1.2. With the 0.6.0 release, it’s now easier to use than ever, and we’ve added an impressive list of new features to make this the most powerful WiFi platform available today (says us, anyway). Keep reading for details!

New WICED Feather Board Support Package

The WICED Feather can now be installed directly from the Arduino IDE via a standard board support package. No more manual installations to the hardware folder, and you can keep up to date with future releases of the library from the convenience of the Arduino IDE!

Moar Codz, Plz: 256KB Flash and 20KB SRAM!

As of version 0.6.0 of FeatherLib (the firmware core that drives the WICED Feather), you now have twice the flash memory and more SRAM for your user sketches written in the Arduino IDE. Earlier versions gave you 128KB flash and 16KB SRAM, which we’ve now bumped up to 256KB flash and 20KB SRAM! To benefit from the new memory space, simply update your BSP to 0.6.0 and reflash FeatherLib from the Arduino IDE by changing the board section to ‘FeatherLib (Release)’. The next time you reset your board you’ll have twice as much space for your awesome project

SPI Flash with USB Mass Storage Support

The 16Mbit (2MB) SPI flash has existed on the WICED Feather since day one, but it is now enabled in FeatherLib, and gets exposed as a 2MB flash drive over USB MSC, meaning you can drag and drop files onto the SPI flash for use on the HTTP Server, or for any other purpose. We also include FatFS in the Arduino WICED Feather BSP enabling you to work with long file names and manipulate files in code from your Arduino sketches.  Simply update your board to FeatherLib 0.6.0 or higher and solder the SPIFCS solder jumper closed, and reset your board and you should see a new SPI Flash drive appear on your system. We also have several sketches showing different ways you can use the SPI flash, including an HTTP server demo that interactively browses the SPI flash contents with system callbacks in the background via JavaScript!

Soft AP Mode

In addition to being able to connect to an AP, the WICED Feather can now run in Soft AP Mode, meaning that other WiFi devices can connect to your feather without the need for any other HW, and they will be assigned an IP address via DHCP, etc. You can now create entirely local sensor networks based on the WICED Feather wherever you are, for example. See the SoftAP examples for details. We have examples of running TCP or UDP servers on the Feather in Soft AP mode which should help you get started creating custom services and getting WICED Feathers or other WiFi enabled devices talking to each other!

HTTP Server

The WICED Feather BSP now includes a really easy to use and powerful helper class called AdafruitHTTPServer. Using this helper you can easily add an HTTP server to your project in either normal or AP mode, and create very rich config user interfaces or data visualisations — for example, using D3 to render some memory usage stats — all viewable from almost any computing device!

Not content to just give you a simple HTTP server and call it a day, though, you can add not just static resources that are compiled into your sketch, but also link directly to files stored on the 16MBit SPI flash (dragging and dropping the files over USB MSC!), or easily serve dynamic pages from an Arduino sketch, such as generating dynamic sensor data on the fly! Give it a try … we’re really proud of this, and think it’s a good combination of ease or use and flexibility, and we’re curious to see what people do with it!

We’ve also included a convenient tool to convert your static files into headers for easy integration into your projects.

E-Mail Support: “Hello, World! This is WICED!”

While this one is still a work in progress, you can now send emails directly from the WICED Feather via the BETA AdafruitEmail helper class. It has only been tested with GMail server for now, but the goal is to be able to send yourself email alerts or bug reports when significant events happen, and we think it adds an extra little level of usability to any device.

Future Developments

There are always more bells and whistles to add, but we think 0.6.0 is our best release yet for FeatherLib and the new BSP makes it easier to use than ever. Let us know what works for you and what doesn’t in the forums so that we can continue to make this the best WiFi platform out there for makers and hobbyists!