blynk-library VS PlatformIO

https://blynk.io/ (you can find an example that uses their legacy API in one of my releases)

Like it says, to try and keep up with the changing well levels in the summer at my house, I put together a project to monitor well water levels and update a Blynk app.

From the source code found here: https://github.com/blynkkk/blynk-library/blob/master/src/Blynk/BlynkConsole.h

Check out Blynk: https://blynk.io

I have an Arduino Mega 2560 with an ESP8266 module connected to it via Serial1 as outlined in https://github.com/blynkkk/blynk-library/blob/master/examples/Boards_WiFi/ESP8266_Shield/ESP8266_Shield.ino - basically, this sketch works perfectly as is, but I have it personalized, of course.

That Blynk library sucks badly... it's obviously NOT written with ESP8266 in mind, simply grossly hacked from an Uno to sort-of-work. I see a few places in the header file alone where it can hang and cause a WDT, and the 'ping' that's printed is buried somewhere else in the library, undoubtedly another poorly-planned while() or if-else-hang.

Agreed about google and would add clarity. In the field of IT clarity is critical. If OP had said blynk.io, the .io would have clicked with me that it was a web site. Another guy just asked about PS/2 - I thought he meant the keyboard/mouse interface. Others twigged that he meant Playstation 2.

For the ESP32 in read mode, we've successfully developed a project using PlatformIO that accepts the key during build time and stores it in memory.

Check out Zephyr OS and Platform IO. Zephyr is part of the Linux foundation and has similarities to Linux with how it performs hardware abstraction (device tree). Platform IO integrates with other frameworks including mbed and Arduino.

PlatformIO together with avr-stub can be used to do source level debugging but there are some caveats.

Look into https://platformio.org/, it can abstract over a few RTOSes, and can show you which OSes work with which chips/boards.

If the HW looks like it works, you could also try alternate programming software. (e.g. TinyGo or PlatformIO)

You might have better luck with PlatformIO than the Arduino IDE; it's better at automatically choosing the serial port, though I can't say I've used it under Windows.

My other suggestion takes more work but will make your life oh so much better. Professionally I have used and highly recommend. https://platformio.org/ which is free!

Will you be doing embedded Linux? Embedded RTOS? Bare metal? Microcontrollers? SoC (say, FPGA with a hard processor core)?

You can do a lot with QEMU. https://bootlin.com/ has a lot of great, free training material.

https://bootlin.com/doc/training/embedded-linux-qemu/embedde...

is one of my favorites.

Learning to cross-compile, do embedded debugging, the process of booting an embedded system (which varies depending on the answers to the above questions), learning how to read a technical reference for the processor you’re using as well as for peripherals you’re likely to interact with - SPI, i2c, UART, maybe PCIe, are all handy skills. Learn a bit about JTAG, hardware, reading schematics, etc. Even being able solder is helpful.

There may be books (I had a great embedded Linux book when I started) but there are lots of online materials too. Check out https://platformio.org/

There are fun embedded boards and projects for microcontrollers too - micropython on an rpi pico, tinygo, eLua, etc.