I'm using a ESP8266 board from a local shop, $17, I knew you can get cheaper on Ali but starting out I like not to wait and not worry so much about quality. However I will look into these for future boards.

I set up a thermal sensor that updates a Parse (remember them!) clone. Working well but sometimes it just stops updating, not sure if it is the device or the Parse clone's fault or a bit of both. But it works nicely for a day or so at a time.

Just a reminder things might not go smoothly with these devices, they are tricky to debug if they crash. When you are communicating via http the apis are not as nice as I am used to on the desktop.