Today, probably the ESP32 is the most bang for the buck - unless there's something more cost competitive and equally widespread, which didn't come to my mind.

Today, probably the ESP32 is the most bang for the buck - unless there's something more cost competitive and equally widespread, which didn't come to my mind. Notably, an ESP32 based on RISC-V is due shortly, with an expected price of $1. Wifi, BT5+BLE, 400KB ram (which may not be enough for everybody, but it's close), 22 GPIO's, a single 32-bit RISC-V core running at 160Mhz. https://www.cnx-software.com/2020/12/20/esp32-c3-wifi-ble-risc-v-processor-esp8266-price/ https://www.cnx-software.com/2020/12/20/esp32-c3-wifi-ble-ri...