Thanks to PlatformIO it is very easy to add further functionality from libraries to the code for ESP8266. When you need to install library, just start Library Manager from ide and type:

pio lib install WiFiManager

PlatformIO will resolve dependencies and download all necessary stuff. Even better option is to add dependency to platformio.ini file:

[env:d1_mini]
platform = espressif8266
board = d1_mini
framework = arduino
lib_deps =
  ArduinoJson
  esp8266_mdns
  PubSubClient
  WiFiManager

PlatformIO will manage the installation after you save the file. That is very neat.

Then new problems occurred when I started with integration of WiFiManager. Do not take me wrong. WiFiManager is very handy library, but you may experience some tricky issues.

The first problem that I hit was that WiFiManager interface was not visible at 192.168.4.1 port 80. ESP was apparently running in AP mode for configuration, but there was no web interface. This issue was caused by this line in my code:

ESP8266WebServer server(80);

I had web server in the main code before I merged the code from WiFiManager. Web server was serving simple REST API for controlling relay. Unfortunately this construct blocked the port so the AutoConnect web server. The server was not able to bind the port. Solution was simple. It was sufficient to instantiate web server after WiFi was working.

The second problem was that AutoConnect from WiFiManager was always turning in AP mode. I was hunting the problem for several hours without any result. One idea was that WiFiManager is not saving the password. That was not true. Other idea was that the memory is corrupted and reformat would help. Unfortunately it didn’t. I gave up.

That solved the problem. Seriously. I gave up and that solved the problem. I let the device running and then ding. It was online. For some strange reason ESP8266 was not able to establish connection with particular WiFi router at first shot. Then it turned on AP mode and after timeout of Config Portal it connected to the WiFi network. Remedy? Just shorten ConfigPortalTimeout:

wifiManager.setConfigPortalTimeout(60);

The third problem was that Config Portal was not displaying information stored as extra custom parameters. I stored there host name of MQTT broker and other options so they won’t be hardcoded. The problem was caused by WiFiManagerParameter constructed in global scope. Issue was similar the first problem with web server.

Solution was to move construction of WiFiManagerParameter to the method after loading configuration values from file config.json stored on file system.

File configFile = SPIFFS.open("/config.json", "r");
...
WiFiManagerParameter custom_mqtt_host("mqtt_host", "MQTT host", configMqttHost, 40);

After resolving these issues WiFiManager is working and it is possible to set values for configuration via Config Portal and there is no need to hardcode them anymore.

Original code is stored at GitHub – LampESP branch v0.1. The new version is at Github – LampESP branch master. I made also small refactoring and the functionality was divided into smaller files which resembles modules for better code maintenance.