That was one of my first reactions reading about this design as well, that WiFi is likely a liability in this case (not to mention espressif's security track re

That was one of my first reactions reading about this design as well, that WiFi is likely a liability in this case (not to mention espressif's security track record is not the best) despite the potential ease of provisioning. I would prefer either a microcontroller with ethernet or acting as a USB network device. Then it would still be as easy as plugging into the device with a laptop and navigating to a web page to configure the ventilator, although one couldn't easily do it from a smartphone or tablet.