My project has an arduino that reads a bunch of sensors, sends to bluetooth (HC-05) via uart that an android device can read/controller. I want to step it up to allow multiple devices to read/controller the sensors. I started to play around making a 'main' Android device connect to bluetooth then open a hot-spot that other android devices will connect to as httpserver.
I started to read about the ESP8266 and thought that would be a better solution, making that the Acess Point for all devices to connect to. Get rid of my server / client android coding.
On a high level, just wondering how I would go about that. My arduino would send data via UART or I2C or SPI to ESP. Would the ESP keep on refreshing an http page every x seconds, that the android devices would keep on reading the http page? Or does the andriod request a page every x seconds?
Or do I setup a TCP port on the ESP that listens on. I'm just not sure if multi devices can connect to 1 port or if I'd have to open up 10 of them and each client keeps on trying until it finds a free port? (That's how I was doing my android Hotspot scenario)
Basically how do you send a bunch of values to a bunch of devices (and these devices can send control words back to control sensors).