I think it’s great that the author did this as a learning experience. It seems like soldering on a few wires could have saved you like 3 weeks.. but anyway, the

I think it’s great that the author did this as a learning experience. It seems like soldering on a few wires could have saved you like 3 weeks.. but anyway, the ESP8266 is a great platform. Super cheap, minimal components, easy to program, you can write code natively using the SDK or various script based languages. And has good support from the manufacturer.