ESP8266 is ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ Free Wi-Fi

Let’s face it, everyone loves free Wi-Fi. Rick Astley? Probably not so much. Mindful of this, Jaime Johnston came up with an amusing little project to help get started with the ESP8266.

Rather than provide you with high-speed Wi-Fi, the device delivers a looped GIF of the ’80s pop star dancing to “Never Gonna Give You Up” along with a message in the bottom righthand corner letting them know they just got “Rickrolled.”

The setup is fairly simple. A user connects to the device broadcasting an SSID of “free high-speed Wi-Fi.” (This is configurable, of course.) The captive portal helper on their phone or laptop kicks in, presenting them with a page showing “Terms of Service” and a button labeled “I Accept.” Then, this happens…

Those wishing to try out this nifty trick can head to GitHub here, and read more about it on its Hackaday.io page.