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Yevhen Kozachenko 🇺🇦
Yevhen Kozachenko 🇺🇦

Posted on • Originally published at ekwoster.dev

🔥 From Arduino to Mars: Why You Should Be Using TinyGo for Embedded Web Development

#tinygo #webassembly #embedprogramming #webdev

🔥 From Arduino to Mars: Why You Should Be Using TinyGo for Embedded Web Development

If you’ve ever attempted to build something that lives at the intersection of embedded systems and the modern web — say, a microcontroller that serves a WASM-powered control dashboard over HTTP — you’ve probably run into some harsh realities:

  • C is painful.
  • Rust is powerful, but finding embedded libraries that just work is a chore.
  • JavaScript, while king of the browser, isn’t welcome on your $2 MCU.

Is there a better way? What if you could use Go, a modern compiled systems language with safe memory handling and a thriving toolset, to build for microcontrollers AND compile to WebAssembly (WASM)?

Let me introduce you to TinyGo — the smallest, fiercest, and most fun way to build projects that live somewhere between the clouds and your breadboard.

🚀 What is TinyGo?

TinyGo is a Go compiler for small places — literally. It allows you to run Go programs on microcontrollers like the Arduino Nano 33, Raspberry Pi Pico, or even run WASM blobs in no_std environments.

Key features:

  • ✨ Drop-in Go syntax (not all of it, but enough)
  • 📦 Cross-compilation to many MCUs (AVR, ARM Cortex-M0+, RISCV)
  • 🕸 Compiles to WASM — and the output is small (we’re talking kilobytes)
  • 🔥 Integrates with Visual Studio Code and common Go tooling

🧪 The Experiment: Live Dashboard + Sensor on the Same Microcontroller

Let me show you a crazy-cool idea: what if a single microcontroller could both read sensor data and serve a WASM web UI to visualize it in real time?

Imagine a soil moisture sensor that hosts its own dashboard. No Raspberry Pi. No external web server. Just one board.

We'll build:

  1. A TinyGo app that:

    • Reads values from a DHT11 sensor (humidity + temperature)
    • Hosts a tiny HTTP server when connected via USB serial or WiFi (ESP32 anyone?)
    • Serves a WASM + HTML dashboard built from the same Go source

  2. A frontend dashboard written using syscall/js in Go and compiled to WASM

📦 Setting Up TinyGo 

brew tap tinygo-org/tools brew install tinygo # OR install via Go: go install github.com/tinygo-org/tinygo@latest
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To target a device:

tinygo flash -target=arduino-nano33 path/to/main.go
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To target WASM:

tinygo build -o static/main.wasm -target=wasm ./wasm-ui
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🔌 Reading the Sensor (main.go) 

package main import ( "machine" "time" "fmt" ) func main() { sensor := machine.D2 // digital pin 2 sensor.Configure(machine.PinConfig{Mode: machine.PinInput}) for { reading := sensor.Get() // fake reading; insert actual DHT11 logic here fmt.Printf("Sensor reading: %t\n", reading) time.Sleep(time.Second * 2) } }
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We’re keeping it simple, but you can connect I2C or SPI sensors and use libraries like tinygo-org/drivers.

🌐 Serving the WASM UI from the MCU

Using a minimal HTTP server (WiFi or serial-over-USB):

import ( "net/http" "embed" ) //go:embed static/* var static embed.FS func main() { http.Handle("/", http.FileServer(http.FS(static))) http.ListenAndServe(":8080", nil) }
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Note: This is pseudo-code. Not all boards support Go's net/http. For truly tiny devices, you’d embed the HTTP binary with a lightweight TCP server or make the browser request data over serial.

🖥 Building the WASM Dashboard

Structure:

wasm-ui/ ├── main.go └── index.html
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main.go (WASM) 

package main import ( "syscall/js" ) func renderData(this js.Value, args []js.Value) interface{} { document := js.Global().Get("document") div := document.Call("getElementById", "sensor") div.Set("innerText", "Temperature: 24°C\nHumidity: 60%") return nil } func main() { js.Global().Set("renderData", js.FuncOf(renderData)) // Call once on load renderData(js.Null(), nil) // Keep it alive select {} }
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index.html 

<!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <meta charset="utf-8"> <script src="wasm_exec.js"></script> </head> <body> <h1>📈 Sensor Dashboard</h1> <div id="sensor"></div> <script> const go = new Go(); WebAssembly.instantiateStreaming(fetch("main.wasm"), go.importObject).then((result) => { go.run(result.instance); window.renderData(); }); </script> </body> </html>
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🧠 Why This Is A Game Changer

  • Traditionally, embedded devices are data slaves — sending sensor data elsewhere for visualization.
  • But with TinyGo + WASM, your device owns the whole stack.
  • This pattern is incredibly useful for remote sensors, pop-up local networks, event-driven instruments, and hackathon hardware!

🧱 Real World Uses

  • 🏕 Off-grid weather stations that host their own progressive web apps
  • 🏫 Classroom science kits that broadcast dashboards over local WiFi
  • 👨‍🚀 Remote devices serving diagnostics in space or on edge networks
  • 💡 Smart IoT devices with no back-end reliance

🚧 Gotchas & Caveats

  • TinyGo still doesn’t support Go 1.22 fully — check compatibility
  • Performance is great on fast boards, shaky on tiny AVR 8-bit ones
  • syscall/js is verbose, but Go’s generics and structs don’t yet work fully in WASM mode

🔮 Conclusion

TinyGo is a secret weapon for developers who dream of merging hardware and the web with one elegant system. Programming microcontrollers used to require learning archaic C, vendor-specific SDKs, and crossing your fingers on every flash.

But now? You get modern tooling, great readability, and the power of Go in the smallest places — or even straight into your browser.

So try it. Grab a $4 board, install TinyGo, and go build your next project that lives between copper and cloud ☁️⚡.

📚 Resources

🛠️ If you're looking to prototype hardware + web apps fast and smart — we offer just the kind of embedded fullstack help you need.

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