Support out-of-the-box peer-to-peer communications

[dlcarrier]

Many of our customers use 802.15.4 modules (e.g. Zigbee) for the out-of-the-box peer-to-peer communications, but do not otherwise have a protocol preference. The configuration or infrastructure requirements of the Parallax WX ESP8266 WiFi Module are not suited to these customers.

The WiFi module is perfectly capable of peer-to-peer communications, but most users require out-of-the-box peer-to-peer communications, as the 802.15.4 modules provide.

If we modify the Parallax-ESP firmware to support peer-to-peer communications, out of the box, we can increase the user base of the WiFi module.

We could first determine and document a peer-to-peer configuration that would allow multiple WiFi modules to share an ad-hoc network, share UART input over multicast packets, and output multicast data it receives, through the UART.

After standardizing a peer-to-peer configuration, we could work it into the default state of the Parallax-ESP firmware, so that end-users can use peer-to-peer communications without any further configuration, but still be able to configure and use the HTTP server in the same manner as they have with the current version of the firmware.