Hello people!
I am new here. I have quite a lot of experience with electronics and coding, BUT not much with digital electronics and Arduino.
I am trying to make a simple thermostat for my heating system, but I want to make both the relay and temperature sensor wireless. For this I bought some esp8266 WiFi modules, and I don't really understand how are they supposed to work. I have yet to successfully connect to them, but even if I did, I'd have no idea what to do next and Google doesn't help.
What I imagine I will do is put one esp8266 on the Arduino, one on the sensor and one on the relay, and have them talk to each other, writing code on the Arduino to fetch data from the modules via WiFi.
What I don't understand is this... do I need connection to my router, or can they communicate between themselves independently? Another complete blackout for me is how I would actually send data using the esp8266 modules... I don't even know where to start and what to do and I can't find much info on Google.
I don't need the basics, the thermostat is already running and tested in wired configuration with code already modified and played with... I know the basics, I have no idea how to integrate the esp8266 modules...
Can this even be done or do I need another Arduino on the sensor/relay side as well?