Everyone on this site is familiar with the ESP8266 module, and I'm grateful for the community effort towards developing application software. In particular, the ESPHTTPD web server, and the Transparent WiFI-UART Bridge ( Based on the former, and featured on the hackaday blog recently ) have been quite useful for me.

With very slight modifications, the JeeLabs software can be used to turn an ESP-13 module into a TCP-UART replacement for the MCP2200 USB-Serial convertor, thus enabling wifi operation.

The code running on the ESP hosts configuration pages on port 80, and port 23 can be used to telnet into it and use it as a TCP-UART bridge.

On the PC side of things I'm using Python sockets to R/W to the vLabtool via the ESP8266.

fd = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
fd.connect(('192.168.1.4',23)) # I have configured ESP to connect to my NETGEAR Router
fd.settimeout(1.0)

fd.send('xyz')  #sending
print fd.recv(10) #receiving. In case of large packets, use multiple receive calls until the expected number of bytes have been received, because this function may timeout and return partial data.

On the vLabtool side, nothing changes except a jumper position. The ESP supports the 1MbPS BAUD used by the MCP2200, so even firmware changes were not required.