Let's first see what are the required hardware modules for this project. Remember that we are going to build two different modules: a sensor board, and a lamp controller.

For both modules, you will need one Adafruit HUZZAH ESP8266 breakout, which will be the central component of each module. You will also need a breadboard and some male/male jumper wires to make the necessary connections.

For the sensor board, you will also need a DHT22 sensor, which we will use to measure the temperature & humidity. You can also use a DHT11 sensor which is cheaper but less precise (which is the one you will see on the pictures), you will only have to change one line of code.

For the lamp controller, we are going to use a PowerSwitch Tail 2, which makes it really easy to attach a lamp (or any electrical device) to your project.

Finally, you will need one FTDI friend board (or a FTDI/USB cable) to program the ESP8266 breakout board.

On the software side, you will need the Arduino IDE that you can get from:

https://www.arduino.cc/en/main/software

After it is installed, add the ESP8266 package by following these steps:

• Open the Preferences window in the Arduino IDE
• Enter http://arduino.esp8266.com/stable/package_esp8266com_index.json into Additional Board Manager URLs field.
• Open the Boards Manager from Tools > Board menu and install the esp8266 platform

You will also need to install the following Arduino libraries:

• Adafruit MQTT library
• DHT sensor library

Finally, also create an Adafruit IO account if it is not done yet. You can do so by going to:

http://io.adafruit.com/

You will need your Adafruit account name & Adafruit AIO key later in this tutorial.