class WINC – wifi shield driver

The WINC class is used for controlling the wifi shield.

Example usage:

import network

wlan = network.WINC()
wlan.connect("SSID", "KEY")

wlan.ifconfig()

Constructors

network.WINC

class network.WINC([mode=MODE_STATION])

Creates a winc driver object and connects to the wifi shield which uses I/O pins P0, P1, P2, P3, P6, P7, and P8.

mode controls the mode the WINC module works in:

network.WINC.MODE_STATION

The module connects to an access point as a client. This is the default mode.

network.WINC.MODE_AP

The module will create an AP (Access Point) and accept connections from a client.

Note

The start_ap() method must be called after setting AP mode to configure the AP.

Also, the WINC1500 has some limitations in its AP implementation:

Only one client can connect at a time.
Only OPEN or WEP security are supported.
There’s a bug in the WiFi Module FW, when the client disconnects any bound sockets are lost (they just stop working). As a workaround, set a timeout for the server socket to force it to raise an exception and then reopen it (See the example script).

network.WINC.MODE_FIRMWARE:

This mode enables WiFi module firmware update.

Note

mode can also be network.STA_IF (station aka client, connects to upstream WiFi access points) and and network.AP_IF (access point, allows other WiFi clients to connect). Availability of the methods below depends on interface type. For example, only STA interface may WLAN.connect() to an access point.

Methods

active

active([is_active])

Activate (“up”) or deactivate (“down”) network interface, if boolean argument is passed. Otherwise, query current state if no argument is provided. Most other methods require active interface.

connect

connect(ssid, [key=None, [security=WPA_PSK, [channel=1]]])

Connect to a wifi network with ssid ssid using key key with security security and channel channel.

After connecting to the network use the usocket module to open TCP/UDP ports to send and receive data.

Note

This method takes a little while to return.

start_ap

start_ap(ssid, [key=None, [security=OPEN, [channel=1]]])

When running in AP mode this method must be called after creating a WINC object to configure and start the AP .

ssid: The AP SSID (must be set).
key: The AP encryption key. A Key is required only if security is WEP.
security: AP security mode (only OPEN or WEP are supported).
channel: WiFi channel, change this if you have another AP running at the same channel.

disconnect

disconnect()

Disconnect from the wifi network.

isconnected

isconnected()

Returns True if connected to an access point and an IP address has been obtained.

connected_sta

connected_sta()

This method returns a list containing the connected client’s IP address.

wait_for_sta

wait_for_sta(timeout)

This method blocks and waits for a client to connect. If timeout is 0 this will block forever. This method returns a list containing the connected client’s IP address.

ifconfig

ifconfig([ip_addr, subnet_addr, gateway_addr, dns_addr])

Returns a tuple containing:

[0]: IP Address String (XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX)
[1]: Subnet Address String (XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX)
[2]: Gateway String (XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX)
[3]: DNS Address String (XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX)

While connected to the network.

You may optionally pass a tuple/list of the ip_addr, subnet_addr, gateway_addr, and dns_addr strings in ipv4 (XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX) format to set a static IP address versus an address obtained through DHCP (which happens by default).

Example usage:

wlan = network.WINC()
wlan.ifconfig(('192.168.1.100', '255.255.255.0', '192.168.1.1', '192.168.1.1'))
wlan.connect(SSID, key=KEY, security=wlan.WPA_PSK)