ESP8266-D1 Arduino Compatible Development Board

Flashed my first sketch in about five minutes flat and it connected to WiFi instantly, which is more than I can say for the other board I tried. The built-in 802.11 support makes it perfect for quick IoT projects without extra shields.

Plugged it in expecting some fiddling, but it showed up in the Arduino IDE instantly and my first blink sketch ran without a hitch. The onboard WiFi is dead reliable for pushing sensor data to my phone, and the USB port makes flashing a total breeze.

Got one of these to tinker with MQTT and Home Assistant, and the fact that it plugs straight into the Arduino IDE saved me a ton of setup headaches. The onboard WiFi is solid for the price, though I did need a separate USB cable for power.