Buy It Now

• $5 on AliExpress
• $12 on Amazon

Opinions

• Pro - It’s the board I use most often for this tutorial
• Pro - Integrates a button, an LED, and a photoresistor so you can start tinkering right away without any breadboards or external parts
• Con - It has to be plugged into base to be programmed making it clumsy to integrate into breadboard circuits
• Con - Button placement supposedly reduces WiFi range, though only by ~2/3 of the original range

Setup Notes

• This board is ready to be plugged in and used in the tutorial
• LED notes:
  • Red channel is on GPIO15 - digitalWrite(15, value)
  • Green channel is on GPIO12 - digitalWrite(12, value)
  • Blue channel is on GPIO13 - digitalWrite(13, value)
  • Some cheap versions of this board have a non-functional LED
• Light sensor notes:
  • CDS cell is hooked up to ADC - analogRead(A0)
  • Make sure the ADC input voltage is always between 0V and 1V
• Button notes:
  • Button is hooked up to GPIO4 - digitalRead(4)
  • Be sure to enable internal pullup - pinMode(4, INPUT_PULLUP)
  • Button pushed = LOW, button released = HIGH
  • The button supposedly limits WiFi range

Resources

• Simon’s Journal Blog Post
  • Good information and sample Arduino code
• ESP8266 Community Forum Thread
  • Lots of real-world info and experience with this particular module
• My Internet of Things Automation Article
  • Overview of board features and alternative firmwares to use with it